Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) an idiot; thus adj. marble-domed, stupid .

1912		Wash. Times (DC) 23 Apr. 13/3: We have seen others adopt the same marble-domed tactics off and on.
1919		DN V 62: Marble-dome, a dullard.
1968		‘Hy Lit’ Hy Lit’s Unbelievable Dict. of Hip Words 51: marble dome – A cement head.

1. a Greek [the many marble statues of Greece + -head sfx].

1978

Maledicta II:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 162: Marblehead Any Greek, or person of Grecian ancestry. Refers to the marble statuaries for which ancient Greece was famous.

2. (US) a fool.

1942

W. Winchell On Broadway 26 Jan. [synd. col.] Half the marble in America is produced in Vermont. However most of the marbleheads are produced on B’way.

(US) a rejection.

1896		Ade Artie (1963) 53: If that North Side wonder’d turn on me now and gi’ me the marble heart, I tell you it’s a safe money guess that I’d go and jump in the lake.
1896		W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 16: give the marble heart To treat with coolness and disdain.
1912		Day Book (Chicago) 19 June 16/1: I’m pretty strong for slang [...] I’ll stand for ‘beat it’ [...] and ‘marble heart’ and ‘frosty stare’.
1939		Howsley Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl.

(US) a cemetery.

1904		Gopher (U. Minnesota) 18 208: Sanger always wears that marble orchard [i.e. tombstone n. (3)] smile.
1917		Eve. Public Ledger (Phila., PA) 18 May 16/1: One Frisco scribe even went so far as to call the club the saddest ever seen [...] the players had been plucked from the marble orchard.
1925		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 56: Listening to one of those ancestor pests as you stroll through an old marble orchard.
1936		L. Pound ‘Amer. Euphemisms for Dying’ in AS XI:3 201: Marble City. [...] The marble orchard.
1944		D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 143: marble town—Cemetery.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1953		‘John Eagle’ Hoodlums (2021) 41: He was wise to the effect of alky on a stomach unlined by food. A quick trip to the marble orchard.
1979		G. Swarthout Skeletons 148: I had come to Harding’s marble orchard to check Millie Mill’s stories.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.
1992		Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 4: Marble Orchard also Gallery 13 Most maximum security prisons housing inmates who are doing long sentences have their own cemeteries [...] Inmates who die in prison and are not claimed by relatives or friends are buried there.
2000		(con. 1940s–60s) Décharné Straight from the Fridge Dad.