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one-armed bandit

noun
/ˌwʌnɑːmd ˈbændɪt/UK/ˌwʌnɑɹmd ˈbændɪt/US

Etymology

From one-armed (“having only one arm”) + bandit (“one who robs others in a lawless area, especially as part of a group; one who cheats others”), referring to the fact that the machine is operated by a single handle, and “steals” money from losing players.

  1. derived from *bannan✻ — “to ban”
  2. derived from banniō — “to ban”
  3. derived from 𐌱𐌰𐌽𐌳𐍅𐌾𐌰𐌽 — “to signal”
  4. derived from banniō
  5. derived from bandire — “to ban”
  6. borrowed from bandito — “outlawed”
  7. compounded as one-armed bandit — “one-armed + bandit”

Definitions

  1. A gaming machine having a long arm-like handle at one side that a player pulls down to…

    A gaming machine having a long arm-like handle at one side that a player pulls down to make reels spin; the player wins money or tokens when certain combinations of symbols line up on these reels.

  2. Synonym of penny-in-the-slot machine.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for one-armed bandit. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA