Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To move in a weaving, wobbling, or rolling manner.
  • intransitive verb To turn or roll. Used of the stomach.
  • noun A wobble or roll.
  • noun An upset stomach.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To rumble, heave, or be disturbed with nausea: said of the stomach.
  • To rumble; ferment, and make a disturbance.
  • noun A rumbling, heaving, or similar disturbance in the stomach; a feeling of nausea.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To heave; to be disturbed by nausea; -- said of the stomach.
  • intransitive verb To move irregularly to and fro; to roll.
  • noun Disturbance of the stomach; a feeling of nausea.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete Nausea; seething; bubbling; rolling boil.
  • noun dialect An unsteady walk; a staggering or wobbling.
  • verb dialect To feel nauseous, to churn (of stomach).
  • verb dialect To twist and turn; to wriggle; to roll over.
  • verb dialect To wobble, to totter, to waver; to walk with an unsteady gait.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb move unsteadily or with a weaving or rolling motion

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English wamelen, to feel nausea; see wemə- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Unknown, but possibly related to Latin vomere (to vomit), to Norwegian vamla (to stagger), and to Old Norse vāma (vomit).

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Examples

  • It's books like this that also remind me it will soon be the day that I head off for that first spring 'traypse and wamble' along the lanes and over the way to the village of Sydenham Dameral.

    Under the Greenwood Tree 2008

  • It's books like this that also remind me it will soon be the day that I head off for that first spring 'traypse and wamble' along the lanes and over the way to the village of Sydenham Dameral.

    Under the Greenwood Tree 2008

  • It's books like this that also remind me it will soon be the day that I head off for that first spring 'traypse and wamble' along the lanes and over the way to the village of Sydenham Dameral.

    47 entries from February 2008 2008

  • Feeling her stomach wamble, she swallowed; dizziness threatened to overcome her.

    Genellan- Planetfall Gier, Scott 2005

  • And they seemed extremely wamble-cropt and chop-fallen; their feathers shone not, even their sickle-feathers drooped in the dust, and their combs were white.

    The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 1862 Devoted to Literature and National Policy Various

  • And sometimes, about two o'clock of an afternoon (these spells come most often about half an hour after lunch), the old angel of peregrination lifts himself up in me, and I yearn and wamble for a season afoot.

    Shandygaff Christopher Morley 1923

  • Most of us when we fall on the pavement (did you ever try it on Chestnut between Sixth and Seventh on a slippery day?) curse the granolithic trust and wamble there groaning.

    Pipefuls Christopher Morley 1923

  • It's a cheery sensation, you know, to find a man who has some imagination, but who has been unspoiled by Interesting People, and take him to hear them wamble.

    Our Mr. Wrenn, the Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man Sinclair Lewis 1918

  • It's a cheery sensation, you know, to find a man who has some imagination, but who has been unspoiled by Interesting People, and take him to hear them wamble.

    Our Mr. Wrenn: The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man 1914

  • "She may shail, but she'll never wamble," replied his wife, decisively.

    The Woodlanders Thomas Hardy 1884

Comments

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  • to move unsteadily, to fee nausea, to growl (said of the stomach)

    February 26, 2007

  • “A piebald clown came wambling in to meet me, struck his hand on his foolish heart, and fell flat in the tan. Love at first sight.”

    —Walter de la Mare, Memoirs of a Midget

    June 9, 2009

  • . . . finally hearing returned—with a vengeance. The first crisp nurse-rustle was a thunderclap; my first belly wamble, a crash of cymbals.

    --Vladimir Nabokov, 1974, Look at the Harlequins! p. 244

    June 13, 2009

  • (verb) - (1) To rumble, as when the intestines are distended with wind; generally spoken of the stomach.

    --William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832

    (2) To turn and twist the body, roll or wriggle about, roll over and over; also with about, over, and through. To roll about in walking; to go with an unsteady gait.

    --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1928

    January 16, 2018