Trivia

The game crambo, in which one person or team must find a rhyme to a word or a line of verse given by another, originated around 1600. The word "crambo" is from the Latin for “cabbage.”

CRAMBO, an old rhyming game which, according to Strutt (Sports and Pastimes), was played as early as the 14th century under the name of the ABC of Aristotle. In the days of the Stuarts it was very popular, and is frequently mentioned in the writings of the time. Thus Congreves Love for Love, i. I, contains the passage, Get the Maids to Crambo in an Evening, and learn the knack of Rhyming. Crambo, or capping the rhyme, is now played by one player thinking of a word and telling the others what it rhymes with, the ,others not naming the actual word they guess but its meaning. Thus one says I know a word that rhymes with bird. A second asks Is it ridiculous? No, it is not absurd. Is it a part of speech? No, it is not a word. This proceeds until the right word is guessed. In Dumb Crambo the guessers, instead of naming the word, express its meaning by dumb show, a rhyme being given them as a clue.