Gambling

How to spell gambling

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce gambling

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does gambling mean?

1. nounThe activity of betting money or valuables on an uncertain outcome, such as a game or race.
2. verbPresent participle of gamble: staking money or taking a risk on an uncertain result.

Gambling in a sentence

• noun

  The new law tightened the rules on online gambling.

• verb

  She spent the whole weekend gambling at the casino tables.

• noun

  His gambling debts eventually forced the family to sell the house.

• verb

  By skipping the survey, the buyers were gambling on the condition of the roof.

Where does gambling come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Gambling traces back to the verb gamble, which surfaced in English only in the early 1700s and is almost certainly a variant of an older dialect word, gamel or gamble, meaning 'to play games' or 'to sport'. That in turn grows from the same Germanic root as the everyday word game, which descends from the Old English gamen, meaning 'amusement, fun, or sport'. Over time the playful sense narrowed to the specific idea of playing games for money or staking something of value on an uncertain outcome. A useful spelling note is the silent crossover with gambol, meaning 'to frolic or leap about', a separate word from Old French gambade; the two are unrelated despite sounding similar, so gambling (wagering) keeps the b followed by the l, while gamboling (frolicking) has an o in the middle. The single l in gambling reflects its descent from gamble, where the e is simply dropped before the -ing ending.

How the word is built

• gamble (to wager)
• -ing (verbal/noun suffix)