bookie

noun

1. (informal)A bookmaker, being a person who, or business which, takes bets from the general public on sporting events and similar.

   “‘You won’t believe it,’ he [Fitz McGee] said. ‘Those dummies won’t let me scratch! The horse is gonna be odds‐on and I’ve got a chunk bet on him out of town. Never get the bookie call it off this late.’”

2. (diminutive, form-of, rare)Diminutive of book.

   “[…] although I had not felt the power of the truth on my own heart, yet I took particular care to read all the little bookies before I put them into the hands of the children.”

   “When, under the old regime, after the sermon was over “little bookies” were handed round, with this title—“The Communion Office, according to the use of the Church of Scotland,” was this nothing more than a handing about of lies in right hands, because the English Office was not bound up with them?”

   “Gems, Jewels, Happy Stories for Boys, and Happy Stories for Girls, are the names of four attractive packets filled with those nice little bookies which are so much liked by young people.”

   “Little Miss Muffet / Sat on a tuffet / Not eating curds and whey. / Instead, she ate cookies / And read little bookies / She saw advertised yesterday.”

   “‘Read a bookie, Mummy.’ Tasha, my oldest, plump, pink, and beady-eyed, pulled at my leg. ‘Read a bookie.’ I sighed, and looked down at the little girl, surrounded by her heap of strewn books and balding teddies.”