Green’s Dictionary of Slang

marbles n.4

(US)

1. personal possessions, esp. money used as gambling stakes.

[UK]Hotten Sl. Dict.
[UK] ‘’Arry on Law and Order’ in Punch 26 Nov. 249/2: It’s as rough, as he says; / No marbles, no lodging, no grub, and that sort o’ thing kep up for days!
[US]D. Hammett ‘The Golden Horseshoe’ in Continental Op (1975) 62: I’m catching the evening train, betting my marbles that the job was made in Tijuana.
[US](con. 1950) E. Frankel Band of Brothers 38: We’re not in Korea to protect our own marbles.
[Aus]J. Alard He who Shoots Last 39: They look such a lovely lot of geese. I promise not to take all their marbles Jack.
[US]R. Blount Jr About Three Bricks Shy of a Load 5: The Steelers and the people around them were [...] held firmly but hazardously together by the goal of winning all the marbles.

2. pearls.

[US]R. Chandler ‘Pearls Are a Nuisance’ in Spanish Blood (1946) 102: So you think I stole some marbles and am sitting around here waiting for a flock of dicks.

3. dollars; money in general; thus big marbles, a large sum of money.

[US]R.L. Bellem ‘Grappling Trilby’ in Popular Sports June 🌐 We collect our forty marbles.
[US]W. Guthrie Bound for Glory (1969) 408: If I wuz jus’ twenty-five years younger tonight, I’d give you gents a honest ta God run fer yer marbles.
[US]W.R. Burnett Little Men, Big World 42: Forty G’s a week is not exactly what you would call marbles.

4. in fig. use, one’s health, strength.

[US]J. Archibald ‘Klump a la Carte’ Popular Det. July 🌐 He got a cramp and had to park until he got his marbles back.
[Aus] A. Prentice ‘The Break’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] I have my marbles in all the right places. I can still fuck like a pneumatic drill.

5. intellectual ability.

[US]F. Flora ‘Collector Comes after Payday’ in Best of Manhunt (2019) [ebook] ‘What the hell’s the matter with you, Frankie? You lost your marbles?’.
[US]M. Millar Beast in View (2016) 273: ‘I don’t think she’s playing with all her marbles’.
[US]Bernstein & Woodward All the President’s Men 300: ‘He hits the sauce every once in a while, but nothing serious. He’s still got his marbles’ .
[US]Jrnl. Gaz. (Matton, IL) 8 Sept. n.p.: ‘I have an 87-year-old widowed aunt [...] She is educated [...] and has all her marbles’.
[Aus]P. Temple Truth 193: ‘How’s he on the tape?’ ‘Looks like shit, but all the marbles. Made up lots of details’.
[US]T. Pluck ‘Moody Joe Shaw’ in Life During Wartime (2018) 248: ‘l may be old, but I still have my marbles’.
[Scot]V. McDermid Out of Bounds (2017) 317: ‘I may be knocking on the door of eighty but I’ve still got all the marbles God blessed me with’.
P. Temple ‘High Art’ in The Red Hand 49: ‘[C]ount yourself lucky if you have Maurie’s marbles when you’re eighty-two’.
[UK]J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 105: [S]he’s lucky to have her legs and her marbles when her few surviving contemporaries are dribbling liquids from plastic straws.

In phrases

do one’s marbles (over) (v.)

(Aus.) to commit oneself emotionally.

[Aus]J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 65: ‘The first thing you learn [...] is never to do your marbles over a bloke’.

SE in slang uses

In phrases

have marbles in one’s head (v.) [paradoxically synon. with colloq. phr. lose one’s marbles]

(US) to be insane, eccentric, foolish.

[US]F. Paley Rumble on the Docks (1955) 134: You got marbles in your head [...] What the hell I’m goin’ do home!
pass in one’s marbles (v.) (also roll in one’s marble(s), throw in one’s marble)

(Aus.) to die.

[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Apr. 14/4: A hunk of bush phraseology:- ‘Yes, ole Brown was a reg’lar ole coot, a right down pukacker. Yer could ring a tatt into him anytime. He rolled ’is marble in last year – too much nose-paint, yer know.’ Which all meant merely that Brown was shiftless and credulous and had died through excessive drinking.
[Aus]Sun. Times (Perth) 3 July 4/7: When I throw my marble in and leave this sphere terrestrial.
[Aus]Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.
[Aus]D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 304: I’m not going to pass in my marble just yet!
[Aus]N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 237/1: pass in your marbles – to die.