gib

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“
"I am melancholy as a gib-cat"

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Definitions (23)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun A plain or notched, often wedge-shaped piece of wood or metal designed to hold parts of a machine or structure in place or provide a bearing surface, usually adjusted by a screw or key.
  2. transitive verb To fasten with a gib.
  3. noun A male cat, especially a castrated one.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (13)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (5)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (2)

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Examples (50)

  • After hearing guns on shore, and seeing rockets thrown up, the night remarkably dark, could just carry single reefed topsails top-gallant sails, gib, and maintopmast staysails. —  The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II
  • My gib is no different than any of the other geniuses who worked on Guitar Hero. —  GoNintendo.com Podcast
  • The thrums were a perquisite of my own, which I niffered with the gundy-wife for Gibraltar-rock, cut-throat, gib, or bull's-eyes Picture: Mansie and Nancy Having come into the world before my time, and being of a pale face and delicate make, Nature never could have intended me for the naval or military line, or for any robustious trade or profession whatsoever. —  The Life of Mansie Wauch tailor in Dalkeith
  • Mammy said dat de white folkses wuz good ter dem an' gib 'em good food an' clothes. —  Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 1
  • So him go to one master, who berry good to hims niggers--gib dem plenty to eat an' little to do--an' sole hisself to him An' wot did he get for himself?" —  Black Ivory
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Etymologies (5)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Origin unknown.
  2. Middle English, probably short for the personal name Gilbert.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (3)

  1. apparently from Old French gibbe, gibe, a sort of arm, an implement for stirring the earth and rooting up plants, apparently a hoe (Roque-fort): see gibbet and jib.
  2. from Middle English Gibbe, Gybbe, Gyb, a proper name, a familiar abbreviation of Gilbert (French Guilbert, Middle Latin Gilbertus, etc., of Old High German origin, German Gilbert); much used as a proper name for an individual cat, like modern English Tom, and finally regarded as a common (generic) name. So in comp. gib-cat, q. v. Cf. Tom, a name for a cat, tom-cat; Dobbin, a name for a horse, etc.; Reynard, a fox, etc.
  3. from gib, n. In the sense of ‘castrate,’ perhaps a reduction of glib in that sense: see glib.
 

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/gɪb/
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