Definitions

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

  • noun A chapped or inflamed area on the skin, especially on the heel, resulting from exposure to cold; an ulcerated chillblain.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A chap or crack in the flesh, caused by cold; an ulcerated chilblain, as on the heel.

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

  • noun A chap or crack in the flesh occasioned by cold; an ulcerated chilblain.

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

  • noun a chilblain or ulcer, especially on the heel of the foot

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

  • noun ulcerated chilblain on the heel

Etymologies

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

[Middle English kybe.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Origin unknown.

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Examples

Comments

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  • Is that what it's called?

    September 10, 2008

  • A chap or crack in the flesh occasioned by cold.

    "He galls his kibe." -- Shakespeare.

    December 31, 2008

  • The different departments of life are jumbled together -- The hod-carrier, the low mechanic, the tapster, the publican, the shopkeeper, the pettifogger, the citizen, and courtier, all tread upon the kibes of one another...

    - Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (Bramble to Lewis), 1771

    January 6, 2009

  • "Fool: If a man's brains were in's heels, were't not in danger of kibes?

    Lear: Ay, boy."

    - Shakespeare, quoted as epitaph to Poet's Pub by Eric Linklater

    November 21, 2011