From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
May game (plural May games)
- (now chiefly historical) An entertainment held as part of the spring celebrations in May, especially on May Day. [from 16th c.]
- (now chiefly Somerset, Devon, Cornwall) An object of ridicule; a laughingstock. [from 16th c.]
1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, stanza 40, page 279:Ah my deare Lord, what ſight is this (quoth ſhe) / What May-game hath misfortune made of you?
- Joseph Wright, editor (1903), “MAY-GAME”, in The English Dialect Dictionary: […], volume IV (M–Q), London: Henry Frowde, […], publisher to the English Dialect Society, […]; New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, →OCLC.
- “May game, n.”, in OED Online
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
