A dumble

[Tim Regan (Intl Vendor)]

Hi All,

I was listening to BBC Radio 4's programme "Gardener's Question Time" on
Sunday 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?gqt

This week it came from Lambley, 6 mile NE of Nottingham. 

"The village is fed by numerable springs and two dumbles, small but deep
channels with attractive small waterfalls and weirs along their length."

That meaning of "dumble" as a whole word isn't in the Oxford English
Dictionary, but it started me thinking about the origins of the word
dumbledore. We know it meant bumblebee, but why? Perhaps from:

Dumble = small but deep channels (probably local to Nottinghamshire?)
Dore = to glaze with saffron, yoke of egg etc (first used in 1420).

So perhaps dumbledores were named for the colour that they brought to
village dumbles?

Sadly this pretty little idea turns out to be wrong.

On further examination it turns out that dor and dorr are older, with
the first use of dora to describe an insect that flies with a loud
humming noise as 700 AD! You can even apply it to people: Bullinger's
"Decades" (1592) "There is none so very a dorrhead as that hee
vnderstandeth not".

And dumble is listed as a prefix; it is a variant of dummel: stupid,
dull, slow (first used 1570).

So, unlike my rather sweet analogy, it looks like a bumblebee was called
a dumbledore because that meant slow loudly humming flying insect!

This random ramble through the English language brought to you by ...

Dumbledad (which I now find means stupid, dull, and slow Dad!!!!)