Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A male cat, especially a castrated one.
  • 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.
  • transitive verb To fasten with a gib.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A familiar name for a cat; hence, as a generic name, any cat, especially an old cat: commonly used for the male.
  • noun The wedge or adjusting-shoe by which wear is taken up at a sliding contact, such as a cross-head moving on guides.
  • noun A prism.
  • noun The hooked mandible of the male salmon or trout which is formed during the breeding-season.
  • noun A hooked stick.
  • noun A wooden support for the roof of a coal-mine.
  • noun A piece of iron used to clasp together the pieces of wood or iron of a framing which is to be keyed.
  • noun In steam-mach., a fixed wedge used with the driving-wedge or key to tighten the strap which holds the brasses at the end of a connecting-rod.
  • noun The projecting arm of a crane; a gibbet. Also jib.
  • To behave like a cat.
  • To castrate, as a cat.
  • To eviscerate or disembowel, as a fish. Also gip.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To secure or fasten with a gib, or gibs; to provide with a gib, or gibs.
  • transitive verb an engine lathe in which the tool carriage is held down to the bed by a gib instead of by a weight.
  • noun A piece or slip of metal or wood, notched or otherwise, in a machine or structure, to hold other parts in place or bind them together, or to afford a bearing surface; -- usually held or adjusted by means of a wedge, key, or screw.
  • noun (Steam Engine) the fixed wedge or gib, and the driving wedge,key, or cotter, used for tightening the strap which holds the brasses at the end of a connecting rod.
  • noun obsolete A male cat; a tomcat.
  • intransitive verb obsolete To act like a cat.
  • intransitive verb To balk. See jib, v. i.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A bolt or wedge made from wood or metal used for holding a machine part in place.
  • noun A castrated male cat or ferret.
  • verb To fasten in place with a gib.
  • noun video games Miscellaneous pieces of a fragged character, most often in first-person shooters.
  • verb video games To blast an enemy or opponent into gibs.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a castrated tomcat
  • noun a unit of information equal to 1024 mebibytes or 2^30 (1,073,741,824) bytes

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, probably short for the name Gilbert.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Origin unknown.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Unknown origin (18th century)

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Shortened from giblet.

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Examples

  • - Tapered driving keys the thicker ends of which feature a nose are called gib-head keys.

    2. Types of Keys Frank Wenghfer 1990

  • 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 Various

  • He developed into quite an expert fisherman; nor, when the boats came in, did he shirk work, but manfully rolled up his trousers and helped carry water and "gib" mackerel as if he enjoyed it.

    Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 1908

  • Ef de gubment won't take keer o 'de darkeys y'her, an' gib 'em a white man's chance, dey'll run away, jes 'ez dey did in slave times.

    A Fool's Errand. By One of the Fools 1879

  • Dey du say dat when he used ter buy a boy er gal de berry fust ting he wuz gwine ter du wuz jes ter hev 'em up an 'gib 'em a new name, out' n out, an 'a clean suit ob close ter

    Bricks Without Straw Albion Winegar Tourg��e 1871

  • Dey du say dat when he used ter buy a boy er gal de berry fust ting he wuz gwine ter du wuz jes ter hev 'em up an 'gib 'em a new name, out' n out, an 'a clean suit ob close ter' member it by; an 'den, jes by way ob a little' freshment, he used ter make de oberseer gib 'em ten er twenty good licks, jes ter make sure ob der fergittin 'de ole un dat dey'd hed afo'.

    Bricks without Straw A Novel 1880

  • "Dey taught o 'dat: so dey's gwine to leabe one man at de fawks wid a good hoss to come down whichever road you don't take, an' gib 'em warnin ', leastwise ef you takes de upper road, which dey don't' spect, cos you come de lower one.

    A Fool's Errand. By One of the Fools 1879

  • Are you about to 'gib' after all, just as I was flattering myself that I had broken you in to go quietly in harness? "

    Phaethon Charles Kingsley 1847

  • May 29th, 2008 2: 02 pm ET hillary you are harmong urself, as well as the party if u love america, you would gib = ve them a chance to get better

    Clinton has double-digit lead in Puerto Rico 2008

  • I like the cut of your gib, or possibly jib, you like to get to the meat of the action.

    Origins Friday 2008

Comments

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  • Or ferret.

    January 3, 2007