Marbles - Marble Terminology

Marble Terminology

• "Knuckle down", the position adopted at the start line at the beginning of a match. You begin with your knuckle against the ground.
• "Quitsies": Allows any opponent to stop the game without consequence. You can either have "quitsies" (able to quit) or "no quitsies".
• "Keepsies" (or "for keeps"): The player keeps all the marbles he or she wins.
• "Elephant Stomps": When called, it allows a player to stomp his/her marble level with the ground surface, making it very difficult for other players to hit the marble.
• "Bombies": When called, it allows a player to take 1-2 steps while holding his/her marble and normally closing one eye will line up over one of the opponents marble and drop the marble trying to hit the marble on the ground.
• "Leaning Tops": When called, a shooter leans in on his/her off hand for leverage over an indentation on any type of surface or obstacle.
• A "taw" or "shooter" is a larger marble used to shoot with, and "ducks" are marbles to be shot at.
• Various names refer to the marbles' size. Any marble larger than the majority may be termed a boulder, masher, popper, shooter, taw, bumbo, crock, bumboozer, bowler, tonk, tronk, godfather, tom bowler, fourer, giant, dobber or Biggie. A marble smaller than the majority is a peawee/peewee or mini. A "grandfather" is the largest marble, the size of a billiards ball or tennis ball.
• Various names for different marble types (regional playground talk, Leicester, UK): Marleys (Marbles), Prit (white marble), Kong (large marble), King Kong (larger than a Bosser), Steely (Metal Ball-bearing). Names can be combined: e.g. Prit-Kong (large white marble). There are many more such names, as discussed in the next section.