a1598 D. Fergusson Sc. Prov. (1641) sig. B3^v Dummie cannot lie.

1628 Z. Boyd Last Battell Soule (1629) 1049 All men are lyers, but Dummie cannot lye.

1681 S. Colvil Mock Poem (1751) 120 Like to dumbies making signs.

1823 T. Moore Fables Holy Alliance 26 The wise men of Egypt were secret as dummies.

1825 H. Smith Gaidies & Gravities I. 137 Speak! for thou long enough hast acted Dummy.

1826 J. Wilson Noctes Ambrosianae xxv, in Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Apr. 492 Tongue-tied like a dumbie.

1874 in Hotten's Slang Dict. (rev. ed.)

1918 ‘A No. 1’ in N. Anderson Hobo (1923) vii. 100 Dummy. Pretends to be deaf and dumb.

1926 J. Black You can't Win vi. 70 What do you do if you bump into a natural dummy when you're D. D.ing?

1940 C. McCullers Heart is Lonely Hunter i. iv. 55 But a dummy!.. ‘Are there any other deaf-mute people here?’ he asked.

1736 J. Hort Proposal Quadrille 2 She shall not handle a Card that Night, but Dummy shall be substituted in her room.

1825 C. Lamb Let. 10 Dec. (1935) III. 30 We have a corner at double dumbee for you.

1827 B. Disraeli Vivian Grey IV. vi. vi. 228 [He] proposed to the Prince..double dumbmy.

a1839 W. M. Praed Poems (1864) II. 181 He'll see her, silent as a mummy, At whist, with her two maids and dummy.

1856 A. F. Blyth Whist-player 70 Dummy cannot revoke.

1860 Bohn's Hand-bk. Games iv. 178 He who draws the lowest card takes Dumby as his partner.

1886 J. Collinson Biritch 2 No suggestions as to play may be made by the one standing out (Dummy) to the dealer.

1894 ‘Boaz’ Pocket Guide to Bridge 5 After the first player has played a card, the dealer plays his partner's hand, which, like Dummy, is placed face upwards on the table.

1901 R. F. Foster Bridge Man. (new ed.) 17 After laying down his cards..the dummy takes no further part in the play, and is not allowed to make any remarks or suggestions.

1901 W. Dalton Bridge Abridged 23 With very bad cards in your own hand, there is a slightly increased possibility of an exceptional hand in your Dummy.

1901 W. Dalton Bridge Abridged 23 After the first card is led the Dummy hand is exposed.

1903 O. Crawford in Times 16 Jan. 5/6 ‘Auction bridge’..is more lively than dummy bridge.

1904 Bridge & Progressive Bridge 18 Dummy Bridge, or Bridge for three players, can be played in several ways. The following is the best system:—The player who cuts the lowest card takes Dummy against the other two players..and the Dummy hand is placed opposite to him.

1904 Bridge & Progressive Bridge 22 Double Dummy Bridge, or Bridge for two players, is not at all a bad game.

1910 W. Dalton ‘Saturday’ Bridge (rev. ed.) 14 After exposing Dummy, the dealer's partner has no part whatever in the game.

1910 W. Dalton ‘Saturday’ Bridge (rev. ed.) xvi. 230 Z leads to the first trick, and A's hand is exposed on the table, and A becomes the dummy for that deal.

1936 E. Culbertson Contract Bridge Compl. xxxix. 443 South leads a small trump and dummy's Queen is taken by East's King.

1955 Times 6 July 4/7 It is not a double-dummy problem to find the best line of play by the declarer.

1964 R. L. Frey & A. F. Truscott Official Encycl. Bridge 131/1 Double dummy, play of a hand that could not be improved upon, as though declarer were looking at all four hands... It can also be used to refer to perfect play by the defenders. Originally, double dummy was a two-handed form of whist in which each player had a dummy. Some players exposed all four hands, thus giving rise to the modern usage.

1969 E. H. Pinto Treen 224 Playing card stands..are used in double dummy bridge.

1796 M. Robinson Angelina II. 61 Those who take you for a dummy will be out of their reckoning.

1841 C. Dickens Barnaby Rudge lxi. 291 If the chief magistrate's a man and not a dummy.

1856 D. M. Mulock John Halifax II. vii. 157 Half the House of Commons is made up of harmless dummies.

1901 Jrnl. Exper. Med. 6 66 The duration of the disease varies from a few hours to a week, the average being perhaps 72 hours. Horses which recover are said to become ‘dummies’—animals with a permanent cerebral lesion and defective intelligence.

1841 T. Hood Tale of Trumpet i, in New Monthly Mag. May 121 She was deaf as any tradesman's dummy.

1850 W. M. Thackeray Hobson's Choice ii, in Wks. (1886) XXIV. 228 A dark green suit..purchased at an establishment in Holborn, off the dummy at the door.

1851 Illustr. London News 53 Attempted to jump on to the ‘dummy’ before the vessel had got quite alongside.

1856 S. C. Brees Terms & Rules Archit. Dumby, a floating barge connected with a pier.

1857 A. Mathews Tea-table Talk I. 341 Like the dummies on a young lawyer's shelf.

1858 P. L. Simmonds Dict. Trade Products Dummy..a name given by firemen to the jets from the mains or chief water pipes.

1864 Webster's Amer. Dict. Eng. Lang. Dummy, 1. A dumb-waiter (Colloq.)..5. A locomotive with condensing engines, and, hence, without the noise of escaping steam.

1870 Illustr. London News 24 Sept. 327 On Friday the small gun was again fired, at various ranges, from 1200 down to 400 yards, at targets and at dummies..making the same targets and producing the like destructive effect among the dummies.

1871 Daily News 28 Apr. (Farmer) The Bill is not yet in the hands of members or public, the document placed on the table of the Lords being what is, in parliamentary slang, called a ‘dummy’.

1893 Leeds Mercury 19 May 5/2 Mr. Acland..laid the new Evening School Code in dummy form on the table of the House of Commons.

1898 A. J. Balfour in Hansard Commons 20 June 768 The Report has been presented in dummy, and is now being proceeded with.

1929 F. W. Carter Secrets of your Daily Paper 59 They are supplied with what is known as a ‘dummy’ or a ‘make-up’.

1964 Gloss. Letterpress Rotary Print. Terms (B.S.I.) 12 Dummies, blank or printed copies usually made up for editorial or production purposes.

1967 Times Rev. Industry Aug. 69/1 A mammoth Encyclopaedia of Education, the dummy of which looks most impressive even though not all the contents are in it.

1903 Science Siftings 22 Aug. 269/1 I never saw the child but it had a dummy in its mouth.

1906 Chemist & Druggist 69 648/2 There has been little progress in the shape of the ‘dummy teat’.

1915 D. H. Lawrence Let. 12 Feb. (1962) I. 316 He [sc. E. M. Forster] sucks his dummy—you know, those child's comforters—long after his age.

1921 Sunday at Home Feb. 257/2 She smiled and crowed and dropped her dummy.

a1930 D. H. Lawrence Last Poems (1932) 273 The British Public..gets bigger and bigger..and its dummy-teat has to be made bigger and bigger and bigger.

1902 Encycl. Brit. XXVII. 418/2 When artificial crowns are supported not by natural tooth-roots but by soldering them to abutments, they are termed dummies.

1907 ‘Old International’ Rugby Guide 27 Feinting, ‘giving a dummy’, or pretending to pass is a useful adjunct to the numerous other qualifications of a good centre.

a1914 J. E. Raphael Mod. Rugby Football (1918) 125 A little judicious ‘dummy’ giving might be very effective in securing an opening.

1920 Times 8 Nov. 6/3 R. C. Pickles ‘sold the dummy’ really cleverly to score again for Gloucestershire.

1936 ‘R. Hyde’ Passport to Hell iii. 60 It is always dusk in the Dummy, which lies underground.

1936 ‘R. Hyde’ Passport to Hell iii. 65 Twenty-one days on bread and water in the Dummy.

1945 O. E. Burton In Prison vii. 107 The aggressor in this case was promptly led off and incarcerated in the ‘dummy’.

1936 E. Sitwell Victoria of Eng. xix. 229 The miserable, hallucinated ventriloquist-dummy hero of one of the most notorious murder trials.

1950 Oxf. Junior Encycl. IX. 476/2 A conventional ventriloquist's dummy is a wooden doll with large glassy eyes, enormous shutter mouth, and teeth like tombstones.

1960 Economist 8 Oct. 175/1 Is he no more than the ventriloquist's dummy for any scientific pressure group that is not getting its way with the Treasury?

1950 N.Z. Jrnl. Agric. Apr. 378/3 The use of galvanised iron piping or iron piping for erection of internal dummies and partitions.

1950 N.Z. Jrnl. Agric. May 479 (caption) A small dairy with suspended dummy and bucket milking machine for one cow.

1948 H. H. Goldstine & J. Von Neumann in J. Von Neumann Coll. Wks. (1963) V. 158 The three α's must obtain numbers of the same parity. This may necessitate the insertion of dummy (ineffective, irrelevant) orders in appropriate places.

1951 M. V. Wilkes et al. Prepar. Programs for Electronic Digital Computer iii. 148 Order 13 is I F during input of punched digits, T F for dummy zeros which make up remainder of 10 digits.

c1964 KDF9 Programming Man. iv. 22 Any instruction preceded by an asterisk will be compiled as the first instruction in a new word, any redundant spaces in the preceding word being filled with dummy instructions.

1969 R. S. Lehman & D. E. Bailey Digital Computing x. 193/2 The function might be defined as sum(a,b,c,d) = a + b + c + d. In this case, the dummy variables are a, b, c, and d. When the function reference is executed, these dummy variables take on the values of the variables named in the reference.

1970 F. Stuart Fortran Programming (ed. 2) ix. 203 All arguments mentioned as dummies may be duplicated in other subprograms or in the main program, without causing error.