penker
English
Alternative forms
- penka, panker
Etymology
(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)
Noun
penker (plural penkers)
- (Northern England, dialectal) A large marble, usually made of stone or metal, used in the game of marbles.
- Unknown, “(Geordie folk song)”:
- Wor Geordie's lost his penker
- 1896, Frank M. T. Palgrave, A List of Words and Phrases in Every-day Use by the Natives of Hetton-le-Hole in the County of Durham, English Dialect Society, page 34:
- The 'panker' or 'panker' is a large marble, made of stone or iron. Each boy puts four marbles in a ring, and proceeds to knock them out of the ring with a panker.
- 1987, Sid Chaplin, “The Night of the News”, in Michael Chaplin and Rene Chaplin, editors, In Blackberry Time, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear: Bloodaxe Books, →ISBN, page 72:
- Here he [Sid Chaplin] learnt to swim and how to jarp Easter eggs; he played with penkers, and shutty ring with glass alleys, and sometimes the men joined in games of tipcat.
- 2004, Bill Griffiths, A Dictionary of North East Dialect, Northumbria University Press, →ISBN, page 326:
- "the first boy threw a penker - much larger than the other marbles (boodies) - the next boy tried to hit it"
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