Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. One, such as a social director or entertainer, who encourages guest or audience participation.
- n. One who incites others to action.
Wiktionary
- n. An employee - usually male - of a Catskill Mountains resort charged with the duty of entertaining guests throughout the day by providing any number of services, from comedian to master of ceremonies.
- n. A lively, puckish man.
Etymologies
- From Yiddish, circa 1930, tuml(en) and -er. (Wiktionary)
- Yiddish tumler, from tumlen, to make a racket. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Part resident comic, part activities director, part hotel cheerleader, the tummler - derived from the Yiddish word for noisemaker - was expected to field guest complaints, organize talent shows, jump into the pool fully clothed or dash screaming through the lobby pursued by a knife-wielding chef.”
“I was going to say Abe Rosenthal called me a tummler, which is Yiddish for a sort of mover and shaker.”
The Girls in the Balcony: Women, Men, and the New York Times
“As in previous shows, she re-creates a Sophie Tucker routine, "Max From the Income Tax," which ostensibly is about economic chaos but reveals more about her fascination with Tucker, a Jewish tummler who for 60 years made herself the butt literally of her own jokes about being a zaftig farbissina.”
“Teaching piano, she also played at rehearsals for producer Max Liebman when Danny Kaye (born David Daniel Kominsky), a Catskill tummler, auditioned for “Sunday Night Varieties” at Tamiment in the Poconos.”
“In fact, when Reiner brought the character back after 30 plus years on an episode of 'Mad About You', it was hinted that he did carry on back in his Catskills tummler days.”
“To put patients at ease, he banters like a borscht-belt tummler, delivering a stream of corny old jokes.”
“If you were not my own son, and if instead she was my daughter, I would not let her go out with a tummler like you.”
“Abe Rosenthal called me a sort of inveterate tummler.”
The Girls in the Balcony: Women, Men, and the New York Times
“He nearly died from pneumonia last year and gets around in a wheelchair, difficult for a fizzy, rubbery-faced tummler who once danced a soft-shoe if you pointed a camera at him.”
“Towards evening we saw some dolphins, called also _tummler_, or tumblers, as well as several gulls, which announced to us that we were fast nearing the sea.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘tummler’.
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250 Cherry-Picked Words
Juicy words for the intermediate and advanced speller
consomme, miniaceous, nankeen, smaragdine, stramineous, vitellary, allemande, beguine, bransle, charabanc, margaritaceous, chaconne and 238 more...
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learning
A list of words whose meanings I am learning, either because a) I don't know the meaning b) I know the meaning, but could stand to better appreciate certain inflections or secondary meanings or c) ...
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Words of the Times
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syncretic
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Specific
philtrum, subitize, agelast, abderian, tyro, zenocratically, logorrhea, aceldama, micawber, foyer, hircine, losel and 95 more...
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words I like
I favor these or would like to use these more often.
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there's a word for that?
I thought there should be a word for that.
Tweets
Looking for tweets for tummler.
john "A startlingly flamboyant man who moves like Pee-wee Herman on amphetamines, Krazy Tyrone, né Paul Krohn, is the last of the Catskills ''tummlers,'' the in-house jesters whose sole job is to keep hotel guests amused before, during and after the all-you-can eat meals. "
The New York Times, From the Catskills' Last House Jester, Kosher Corn, by Andrew Jacobs, August 5, 2005 Jun 18, 2008