1854. Whyte Melville, General Bounce, ch. ix. Honesty, indeed! if honesty’s the game, you’ve a right to your share, what Mrs. Kettering intended you should have. 1857. Ducange Anglicus, The Vulg. Tongue, p. 9. Game n. Intention. ‘What’s your game?’ or, ‘What are you up to?’ (very generally used). 1870. Standard, 27 Sept. If we accept the meaner game which the Times indicates for us, it can only be by deliberate choice. 1879. Justin McCarthy, Donna Quixote, ch. xiii. Come, what’s your little game? 1883. Edw. E. Morris, in Longman’s Mag., June, p. 176. A youth, who left England, and then carried on the same game in Australia. 1889. Standard, 1 May, p. 5, c. 1. The ‘game of law and order’ is not up, in Paris. 1890. Punch, 30 Aug., p. 97. Mug’s game! They’ll soon find as the Marsters ain’t going to be worried and welched. 1891. J. Newman, Scamping Tricks, p. 46. She knew how to work the game of fascination right. 1892. R. L. Stevenson and L. Osbourne, The Wrecker, p. 349, ‘It was the thing in your times, that’s right enough; but you’re old now, and the game’s up.’ Adj. (old).—1. Plucky; enduring; full of spirit and bottom (q.v.). [Cock-pit and pugilists’. The word may be said to have passed into the language with the rise to renown of Harry Pearce, surnamed the Game Chicken.] 1747. Capt. Godfrey, Science of Defence, p. 64. Smallwood (a boxer) is thorough game, with judgment equal to any, and superior to most. 1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 57. Pitying raised from earth the game old man. 1821. P. Egan, Tom and Jerry (ed. 1891), p. 38. Tom, however, was too game to acknowledge any sort of alarm at this slight visitation. 1823. E. Kent, Mod. Flash Dict. Game, s.v. Sturdy, hardy, hardened. 1827. Reynolds, Peter Corcoran, The Fancy. ‘The Field of Tothill.’ The highest in the fancy—all the game ones, Who are not very much beneath her weight. 1855. A. Trollope, The Warden, ch. viii. He was a most courageous lad, game to the backbone. 1891. Licensed Vict. Gaz., 19 June, p. 395. The round had lasted sixteen minutes, and no one present had ever seen gamer or more determined fighting. 2. (common).—Ready; willing; prepared. [Also from cock-fighting. See sense 1]. 1836. Dickens, Pickwick, p. 99, (ed. 1857). ‘All alive to-day, I suppose?’ ‘Regular game, sir.’ 1856. Reade, Never Too Late, ch. xxi. I’m game to try. 1865. Bentley, p. 182, ‘The Excursion Train.’ Again to London back we came The day the excursion ticket said, And really both of us felt game To travel round the world instead. 1880. Punch’s Almanack. Got three quid; have cried a go with Fan, Game to spend my money like a man. 1891. Farjeon, The Mystery of M. Felix, p. 103. ‘I’m game,’ said Sophy, to whom any task of this kind was especially inviting.