Gamming, subs. (nautical).—A whaleman’s term for the visits paid by crews to each other at sea. 1884. G. A. Sala, in Illus. Lon. News, July 19, p. 51, c. 2. When two or more American whalers meet in mid-ocean, and there are no whales in sight, it is customary to tack topsails and exchange visits. This social intercourse the whalemen call gamming ... I cannot help fancying that ‘gam’ is in greater probability an abbreviation of the Danish ‘gammen,’ sport, or that it has something to do with the nautical ‘gammoning,’ the lasting by which the bowsprit is bound firmly down to the cutwater. 1890. Century, Aug. To gam means to gossip. The word occurs again and again in the log-books of the old whalers. Gammon, subs. (colloquial).—1. Nonsense; humbug; deceit. Sometimes gammon and spinach. No gammon = no error, no lies. [Skeat says from Mid. Eng. Gamen = a game; but R. Sherwood (Eng. Dict., 1660), gives ‘a beggar or seller of gammons of Bacon; and in Cotgrave (1611), jambonnier = a beggar, also a seller of bacon, or gammons of bacon.’] c. 1363. Chester Plays, i. 102. This gammon shall begin. 1781. G. Parker, View of Society, I. 208. I thought myself pretty much a master of gammon, but the Billingsgate eloquence of Mrs. P. ... exceeded me. 1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v. Gamon. What rum gamon the old file pitched to the flat. 1823. Mod. Flash Dict. gammon—Falsehood and bombast. 1823–45. Hood, Poems (ed. 1846), vi., p. 96, Behold yon servitor of God and Mammon, Who, binding up his Bible with his ledger, Blends Gospel texts with trading gammon. 1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xxvii. Lord bless their little hearts, they thinks its all right, and don’t know no better, but they’re the wictims o’ gammon, Samivel, they’re the wictims o’ gammon. 1837. Barham, I. L., Blasphemer’s Warning. When each tries to humbug his dear Royal Brother, in Hopes by such gammon to take one another in. 1839. Comic Almanack, Jan. But if you wish to save your bacon, Give us less gammon. 1849. Dickens, David Copperfield, ch. xxii., p. 199. ‘Oh, my goodness, how polite we are!’ exclaimed Miss Mowcher.... ‘What a world of gammon and spinnage it is!’ 1890. Hume Nisbet, Bail Up! p. 92. I’m real grit and no gammon. 2. (thieves’).—A confederate whose duty is to engage the attention of a victim during robbery; a bonnet (q.v.) or cover (q.v.). Verb (colloquial).—1. To humbug: to deceive; to take in with fibs; to kid (q.v.). 1700. Step to the Bath, quoted in Ashton’s Soc. Life in Reign of Queen Anne, v. ii., p. 111. We went to the Groom Porter’s ... there was Palming, Hodging, Loaded Dice, Levant, and gammoning, with all the Speed imaginable. 1823. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, ii., 6. Vile I can get fifteen bob a day by gammoning a maim, the devil may vork for me.