Hypertext Webster Gateway: "tumbling"
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Tumble \Tum"ble\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Tumbled}; p. pr. & vb. n.
{Tumbling}.] [OE. tumblen, AS. tumbian to turn heels over
head, to dance violently; akin to D. tuimelen to fall, Sw.
tumla, Dan. tumle, Icel. tumba; and cf. G. taumeln to reel,
to stagger.]
1. To roll over, or to and fro; to throw one's self about;
as, a person on pain tumbles and tosses.
2. To roll down; to fall suddenly and violently; to be
precipitated; as, to tumble from a scaffold.
He who tumbles from a tower surely has a greater
blow than he who slides from a molehill. --South.
3. To play tricks by various movements and contortions of the
body; to perform the feats of an acrobat. --Rowe.
{To tumble home} (Naut.), to incline inward, as the sides of
a vessel, above the bends or extreme breadth; -- used esp.
in the phrase tumbling home. Cf. {Wall-sided}.
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Tumbling \Tum"bling\,
a. & vb. n. from {Tumble}, v.
{Tumbling barrel}. Same as {Rumble}, n., 4.
{Tumbling bay}, an overfall, or weir, in a canal.
From WordNet (r) 1.7 (wn)
tumbling
adj 1: moving in surges and billows and rolls; "billowing smoke
from burning houses"; "the rolling fog"; "the rolling
sea"; "the tumbling water of the rapids" [syn: {billowing},
{rolling}]
2: pitching headlong with a rolling or twisting movement; "a
violent tumbling fall"
n : the gymnastic moves of an acrobat [syn: {acrobatics}]
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