Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various dung beetles that roll up balls of fresh dung, inside which the female deposits her eggs and on which the larvae feed.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun One of several kinds of scarabæoid beetles, or dung-beetles, which roll up balls of dung in which their eggs are laid, and in which their larvae transform; a straddle-bug, or similar large awkward scarab.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun See
tumbledung .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
dung beetle .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun any of various dung beetles
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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-- H.B. [11] it wuz "tumblebug" as he Writ it, but the parson put the Latten instid. i sed tother maid better meeter, but he said tha was eddykated peepl to Boston and tha would n't stan 'it no how. idnow as tha _wood_ and idnow _as_ tha wood.
The Biglow Papers James Russell Lowell 1855
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[Footnote A: it wuz "tumblebug" as he Writ it, but the parson put the
Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor Volume I Various 1900
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-- H.B.] [Footnote 17: it wuz 'tumblebug' as he Writ it, but the parson put the
The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell James Russell Lowell 1855
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A tumblebug came next, heaving sturdily at its ball, and Tom touched the creature, to see it shut its legs against its body and pretend to be dead.
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And the tumblebug toils and pants and sweats and worries, pushing its burden up hill forever, like Sisyphus, and pretty soon some one comes along and thinks how vulgar and ugly it is, and steps on it and squashes it.
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The first two hundred yards of the Sacramento Sector passed without incident, then one of the skirmishers sighted a tumblebug parked by a rotor.
The Past Through Tomorrow Heinlein, Robert A. 1967
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A tumblebug does not give a man dignity, since it is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-stabilized on a single wheel.
The Past Through Tomorrow Heinlein, Robert A. 1967
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And when the judges were prepared for judging, there came into the court a great tumblebug, rolling in front of him his loved and properly housed young ones.
Jurgen A Comedy of Justice James Branch Cabell 1918
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Jurgen now looked more attentively at this queer creature: and he saw that the tumblebug was malodorous, certainly, but at bottom honest and well-meaning; and this seemed to Jurgen the saddest thing he had found among the Philistines.
Jurgen A Comedy of Justice James Branch Cabell 1918
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For the tumblebug was sincere in his insane doings, and all Philistia honored him sincerely, so that there was nowhere any hope for this people.
Jurgen A Comedy of Justice James Branch Cabell 1918
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