Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Characterized by convexity; protuberant.
- adj. More than half but less than fully illuminated. Used of the moon or a planet.
- adj. Having a hump; humpbacked.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Having a hunch or protuberance on the back; hunched; humpbacked; crookbacked.
- Specifically Swelling by a regular curve; convex, as the moon is when more than half and less than full, the illuminated part being then convex on both margins.
- In botany, having a rounded protuberance at the side or base.
- In zoology, convex but not regularly rounded; somewhat irregularly raised or swollen; protuberant; humped; gibbose.
Wiktionary
- adj. Characterized by convexity; protuberant.
- adj. astronomy Phase of moon or planet between first quarter and full or between full and last quarter.
- adj. Humpbacked.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Swelling by a regular curve or surface; protuberant; convex.
- adj. obsolete Hunched; hump-backed.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. (used of the moon) more than half full
- adj. characteristic of or suffering from kyphosis, an abnormality of the vertebral column
Etymologies
- From Middle English, from Latin gibbus ("humped, hunched"), probably cognate with cubō ("bend oneself, lie down"), Italian gobba ("humpback"), Greek κύφος (kyphos, "humpback, bent"), κύβος (kybos, "cube, vertebra"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, bulging, from Late Latin gibbōsus, hunch-backed, from Latin gibbus, hump. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“+Cap+ bright yellowish or orange color, 3 to 7 inches broad, convex, then flattened, gibbous, that is, more convex on one side than on the other; viscid, covered with woolly (floccose) scales, which often separate.”
“In one sense the likenesses were speaking -- that is, a gibbous balloon proceeded from the mouth of each figure, wherein the following dialogue was indicated.”
“Consider the following (from 'Ghost World') which not only features the only - in my knowledge - use of the word 'gibbous' in popular song, but rather beautifully captures a mood:”
“Catch it 6° below-left of the earthlit crescent Moon on the 26th when its gibbous disc is 15 arcsec across.”
“During February, it brightens from mag -4.1 to -4.2 and its gibbous disc swells from 15 to 18 arcsec.”
“But a bright, gibbous moon would have cleared the hillside to shine into Mary Shelley's bedroom window just before 2am on 16 June.”
The Guardian: Frankenstein's hour of creation identified by astronomers
“There's a bewildering array of familiar supervillains and splendid interludes played as Catwoman, along with collectibles, side missions and distractions in a game that oozes the very essence of Batman, from dialogue and character design to the gibbous moon permanently silhouetting its buildings.”
“This great democracy of ours is definitely waning, and it remains to be seen whether it will remain in its current gibbous state for long.”
“I wondered if a gibbous moon makes a gibbon speak gibberish?”
“I believe we had to choose the name of a tailless monkey — gibbous, gibbon, gibber, none of the above.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘gibbous’.
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Additional 250 Spelling Words
Words for the diehard intermediate and advanced spellers
facetiae, sagittary, anthophilous, hydromancy, pandect, carillonneur, tabbouleh, litterateur, windgall, pinguid, tressure, moderne and 238 more...
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Familiar
Just a list of words
fulminate, unctuous, malediction, lumpenproletariat, descry, surfeit, sententious, supernumerary, unabashed, picayune, obliterate, decry and 112 more...
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phrontistery - g
from phrontistery.info
gabardine, gabbart, gabble, gabbro, gabelle, gabion, gablock, gad, gadarene, gadoid, gadroon, gadzookery and 439 more...
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lunacy
moon-related
moon dog, transient lunar p..., selenography, moonbow, paraselene, maria, parantiselene, moon, luna, trapper's moon, harvest moon, hunter's moon and 94 more...
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wallace
Remington, Windsor, prorector, wen, aver, mottle, seltzer, tepee, lapidary, effete, sotto, presbyopia and 355 more...
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Misanthropic
Lovecraft, Lovecraftian, bete noire
Lovecraftian, bête noire, festinate, hathos, misogynist, foredoom, decorticate, malingerer, nemophilist, mendicant, pendragon, stultify and 33 more...
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lunar
words associated with the moon
la lune, gibbous, waxing, waning, crescent, blue moon, corn moon, lunation, mare cognitum, half, full, eclipse and 9 more...
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jeffrey.t.whitney's list
sartorial, sabbatarian, sagacious, desiccate, ersatz, insouciant, atavistic, luddite, crwth, obdurate, stentorian, ruminate and 51 more...
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Vocab [General]
No particular specification to this list.
philology, etymology, atavistic, proscribe, inchoate, vulgate, abstruse, agnate, anodize, anthropomorphic, assiduous, augur and 89 more...
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MiaLuthien's list ♥
gambit, prehensile, coquetry, impunity, genuflect, ensconce, clavicle, delude, beget, castigate, life caching, convoluted and 478 more...
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Chennessy's Words
philistine, messianic, dyad, cult, bourgeois, blot, ploy, polyglot, lingua franca, cumbersome, lumber, petit-bourgeois and 446 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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Infinite Jest
Words taken from Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.
prorector, monograph, post-fourier, snuffle, rototremble, creatus, enfilade, subanimalistic, balletic, espadrilles, leonine, cirri and 1153 more...
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azd's Words
adamantine, abatial, ablate, ablative, abrogate, accretive, acromegaly, acrostic, actinism, actinic, acuity, adduce and 968 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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The Last Werewolf
This novel by Glen Duncan, aside from being a ripping yarn and beautifully written, is just littered with words that I had to look up and discover that often his use of the word not only fitted per...
gurns, bok, chimney breast, dichotomy, Platonic form, filthy, Platonic Form, mathematics, BAM, skirls, clarity, blundering and 298 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for gibbous.
Louises Now, four days from the full moon (waxing gibbous), we were reduced to water, black coffee, liquor, cigarettes. From "The Last Werewolf" by Glen Duncan. Mar 18, 2012
BrainyBabe For us in 2008, it really only has one meaning. But maybe in his day another meaning was primary, or at least fairly well represented in the mix? (Trying to be generous.) Dec 23, 2008
yarb I remember frowning at that line from Wells as I was reading The Time Machine recently. Assuming it wasn't just an error, I can only think that Wells was trying to convey a sense of the moon's looking distended or distorted, as it sometimes does under hazy conditions or when you're drunk. Dec 23, 2008
BrainyBabe I hadn't picked up on that. Maybe he was thinking of the fourth definition, about the bulge. Dec 23, 2008
sarra Exactly — I'm very puzzled by Wells' use of it here. A full moon is a full moon.
OED: "c. Astr. Said of the moon or a planet when the illuminated portion exceeds a semicircle, but is less than a circle." Dec 23, 2008
BrainyBabe Opposite of crescent. Collocates with wax and wane. Dec 23, 2008
andystardust "... the full moon, yellow and gibbous, came up out of an overflow of silver light in the north-east."
- H.G. Wells, The Time Machine Dec 17, 2008
tenaciousn also describing the 3/4 full moon Nov 30, 2007