Definitions

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

  • Gamblers' Cant, U. S. A kind of gambling game consisting in pitching coins to or towards the ceiling of a room so that they shall fall as near as possible to a certain crack in the floor.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • In those times cattlemen played at crack-loo on the sidewalks with double-eagles, and gentlemen backed their conception of the fortuitous card with stacks limited in height only by the interference of gravity.

    Heart of the West [Annotated] O. Henry 1886

  • Then they would order three or four new California saddles from the storekeeper, and play crack-loo [26] on the sidewalk with twenty-dollar gold pieces.

    Heart of the West [Annotated] O. Henry 1886

  • [FOOTNOTE 25: Eighteenth Century mariners called the petrel (a large sea bird) "Mother Cary's chicken."] [FOOTNOTE 26: crack-loo -- a form of gambling in which coins are tossed high into the air with the object having one's coin land nearest a crack in the floor] "Was I on to the opportunity?

    Heart of the West [Annotated] O. Henry 1886

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