English

Noun

damber ‎(plural dambers)

1. (archaic, Britain, cant) A rascal; a dishonest person; a man belonging to a criminal gang.
   • 1994, Scott, Amanda, Dangerous Illusions, ISBN 9780786000180:

     Happen we seen there was a damber in the ruffmans, and since we'd no yen t' deck the chates, we'd ha' binged a wast but for the rhino we was promised.

   • 2010, Berne, Eric, What Do You Say After You Say Hello?, ISBN 9781407056784:

     The gallows laugh is the dying man's joke, or famous last words. As already noted, the crowds of spectators at Tyburn or Newgate hangings in the eighteenth century used to admire people who died laughing: 'I was the capper, see,' says Daniel Then. 'We had the cull all set up and then something went wrong. The others got away but I got nabbed, ha ha ha!' And 'Ha, ha ha,' roars the crowd in appreciation of the jest as the trap is sprung, 'the damber died game.'

Synonyms

• gangbanger (US) see also Wikisaurus:criminal

Derived terms

• dimber damber

References

• Grose, Francis (1788) A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 2nd edition, London: S. Hooper
• Barrère, Albert; Leland, Charles Godfrey (1889) A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant, volume 1, page 293
• Farmer, John Stephen (1891) Slang and Its Analogues, volume 2, page 249
• Eric Partridge, The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang. Routledge, 1973. ISBN 9780710077615.