Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A negligible amount: finished the work in dribs and drabs.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To cut off; chop off. Dekker. Specifically
- To cut off little by little; cheat by small and reiterated tricks; purloin.
- To entice step by step.
- In archery, to shoot directly at short range.
- In archery, to shoot at a mark at short range.
- To dribble; drivel.
- n. A drop; a driblet, or small quantity.
Wiktionary
- n. A drop.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To cut off by a little at a time; to crop.
- v. To appropriate unlawfully; to filch; to defalcate.
- v. To lead along step by step; to entice.
- v. To shoot (a shaft) so as to pierce on the descent.
- n. A drop.
- n. a small portion or small amount of anything; -- used mostly in the phrase
dribs and drabs .
WordNet 3.0
- n. a small indefinite quantity (especially of a liquid)
Etymologies
- Perhaps from driblet.
Examples
“In this brief list, we can see an assortment of them, from straight carryovers (leader, ski-pass), to literal translations (figli dei fiori, grattacieli), to partial translations where an Italian suffix is tacked on to an English stem (such as drib-blaggio or zoomare).”
“Coulter displays her special genius again with a well leaked drib from her new liberal bash book Guilty about Michelle Obama.”
“Aifinkso him is still lurning tu drib teh hamsur bawls.”
Sure, ai have a - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger?
“Back with us in just a little bit as these details start to drib in and drab out.”
“A little drib of news about the forthcoming Haunted Mansion movie:”
“BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Your drib and drab correspondent here.”
“O'BRIEN: And we are getting a drib and drab of information in advance of all of this.”
“When I stay dere wid Miss Leggett, I hadder pick up little chip 'bout de yard when I fust come home from school en den I hadder go 'way up in de big field en drib de turkeys up.”
“But as near as we can figure, it 's too much of a drib-drab proposition for that.”
“For my idle hours there was the 'Complete Mathematician,' showing how to figger the most difficult problems easily, how to measure corn in the drib, water in the well, figger interest, et cetery, by which I become posted on all kinds of arithmetic.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘drib’.
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Imprecise Units of Measurement
A list of terms for units of measurement that are less than exact, such as dessert-spoonful.
two shakes, dessert-spoonful, a pinch, a bit, some, smidge, smidgin, dollop, drop, fleck, smack, sprinkling and 168 more...
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-ib
zib, glib, fib, squib, lib, nib, bib, dib, mib, gib, jib, Carib and 27 more...
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