hamble

(ham‘bl), v.; pret. and pp. hambled, ppr. hambling. [Also dial. hammel, hamel; OHG. hamal, n., a (castrated) wether, MHG. hamel, a wether, also a precipitous height, a cliff, also a stick (cut off), G. hammel, a wether, mutton, > Sw. hammel = ODan. hammel, a wether). Cf. OHG. ham (hamm-), mutilated, crippled, lame, paralytic, MHG. hamen, G. hammen, maim, curtail, and also OFries. hemma, hamma, hinder, obstruct (a limb), MHG. hamen, hemmen, G. hemmen, Dan. hem me, Sw. hdémma, stop, hinder, check: senses near that of the ult. allied H. hamper: see hamperl, hem1, v.] I, trans. 1}. To mutilate; hamstring; cut away. Algate a foot is hameled of thy sorwe. Chaucer, Troilus, ii. 964. To hanvmel, or ham-string, to cut the ham, to hough. E. Phillips, 1706. 2. To cut out the balls of the feet of (dogs), so as to render them unfit for hunting. II, in trans. To walklame; limp: in this sense usually hammel, hammle. (Prov. Eng.] Hamble ton i an (ham-bl-to’ni-an), ». [From Black Hamble ton, a race-course in Yorkshire, England.] The name of a breed of American trotting-horses descended from Hamble ton i an (foaled in 1849), and more remotely from Me enger, an English thoroughbred.