crib

plural cribs

1. UScountableuncountableA baby’s bed with high, often slatted, often moveable sides, suitable for a child who has outgrown a cradle or bassinet.

   In two minutes I was kneeling by the child’s crib, and Sandy was dispatching servants here, there, and everywhere, all over the palace. I took in the situation almost at a glance -- membranous croup!

   1889, Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

   Synonyms: cot

2. UKcountableuncountableA bed for a child older than a baby.

   a day or two afterwards I learned that Miss Temple, on returning to her own room at dawn, had found me laid in the little crib; my face against Helen Burns’s shoulder, my arms round her neck. I was asleep, and Helen was -- dead.

   1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], “[HTTPS://WEB.ARCHIVE.ORG/WEB/20140811201712/HTTP://ETEXT.VIRGINIA.EDU/ETCBIN/OT2WWW-PUBENG?SPECFILE=%2FTEXTS%2FENGLISH%2FMODSLAENG%2FPUBLICSEARCH%2FMODENGPUB.O2W CHAPTER ?]”, in Jane Eyre. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC

3. countableuncountablenauticalA small sleeping berth in a packet or other small vessel.
4. countableuncountableA wicker basket.
5. countableuncountableA manger, a feeding trough for animals elevated off the earth or floor, especially one for fodder such as hay.
6. countableuncountableThe baby Jesus and the manger in a creche or nativity scene, consisting of statues of Mary, Joseph and various other characters such as the magi.
7. countableuncountableA bin for drying or storing grain, such as a corn crib.

   I began to think of my horse. He, however, like an old campaigner, had taken good care of himself. I found him paying assiduous attention to the crib of Indian corn, and dexterously drawing forth and munching the ears that protruded between the bars.

   1835, Washington Irving, chapter 35, in A Tour on the Prairies

8. countableuncountableA small room or covered structure, especially one of rough construction, used for storage or penning animals.

   Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: but much increase is by the strength of the ox.

   1611, “Proverbs 14:4”, in The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   A kitchen, a meat-house, a dairy, a crib with two stalls in the rear, one for the horse the other for the cow, were the out-buildings

   1871, Richard Malcolm Johnston, Dukesborough Tales

9. countableuncountableA confined space, such as a cage or office cubicle.

   The singers were in a crib of wirework (like a large meat-safe or bird-cage) in one corner

   1846, Charles Dickens, Pictures from Italy

10. countableobsoleteuncountableA job, a position; (UK) an appointment.

    but if I have lost my crib and get nothing in exchange I shall feel what a soft Johnny I have been.

    1893, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Stockbroker’s Clerk

    1 more example

    He had seen so many lean years of faithful service when the enemy held the corner on all the official cribs that, now in the days of his party’s fatness and of his own righteous reward, the habit of good, honest hustling stuck to him, and he lined up an array of pulls and indorsements that made him swell with happiness every time he went over the list.

    1904, Forrest Crissey, Tattlings of a Retired Politician

11. countableuncountableA hovel, a roughly constructed building best suited to the shelter of animals but used for human habitation.

    Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, / Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, / And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, / Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,

    c. 1596–1599, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2, act 3, scene 1, lines 9–12

12. countableuncountableA boxy structure traditionally built of heavy wooden timbers, to support an existing structure from below, as with a mineshaft or a building being raised off its foundation in preparation for being moved; see cribbing.
13. countableplural normallyuncountableA collection of quotes or references for use in speaking, for assembling a written document, or as an aid to a project of some sort; a crib sheet.
14. countableobsoleteuncountableA minor theft, extortion or embezzlement, with or without criminal intent.
15. countableuncountablecribbageThe card game cribbage.

    “May we play crib, Mrs. Radford?” he asked.

    1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “Chapter 12”, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC

16. countableuncountablecribbageThe cards discarded by players and used by the dealer, akin to the kitty or widow in other card games.

    The cards were brought and Fanny played at cribbage with her aunt till bed-time; and as Sir Thomas was reading to himself, no sounds were heard in the room for the next two hours beyond the reckonings of the game—And that makes thirty-one, four in hand and eight in crib.

    1814 May 9, [Jane Austen], chapter XI, in Mansfield Park: […], volume II, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 239

17. countableuncountablecomputingA known piece of information corresponding to a section of encrypted text, that is then used to work out the remaining sections.
18. New ZealandSoutherncountableuncountableA small holiday home, often near a beach and of simple construction.

    Synonyms: bach

19. AustraliaNew ZealandcountableuncountableA snack or packed lunch, especially as taken to work to eat during a break.

    He ate a thick square of banana cake from his crib and stared into the fire.

    2002, Alex Miller, Journey to the Stone Country, Allen & Unwin, published 2003, page 40

20. CanadacountableuncountableA small raft made of timber.
21. UKcountableobsoleteuncountablethieves' cantThe stomach.

    Here's Pannum and Lap, and good Poplars of Yarrum, / To fill up the Crib, and to comfort the Quarron.

    1641–42, Richard Brome, A Joviall Crew, or, The Merry Beggars, published 1652, act 2

22. countableuncountableA literal translation, usually of a work originally in Latin or Ancient Greek.

    1 more example

    [On Chapman's use of a Latin literal translation of Homer] As will appear, he blocked out his translation from the Latin crib, keeping one eye uneasily on the Greek, and, enlightened by Scapula or by his own poetic intuition, worked out his own rendering, often marking the departure from the Latin by a defiant note in the margin or commentary.

    1966, Millar MacLure, George Chapman: a critical study, page 171

23. countableslanguncountableA cheat sheet or past test used by students; crib sheet.

    'This is not the Berlitz School of Languages, Head of S. If you want to show off your knowledge of foreign jawbreakers, be good enough to provide a crib. Better still, write in English.'

    1953, Ian Fleming, “Dossier for M”, in Casino Royale, London: Pan Books, published 1955, page 16

24. countableslanguncountableAfrican-American VernacularOne’s residence, house or dwelling place, or usual place of resort.

    Franklin Clinton (Shawn Fonteno): Eh stop shootin' rockets at my crib!"

    2013, Rockstar Games, Grand Theft Auto V, scene: Firing rockets in Franklin's house

    5 more examples

    Why, you would not be boosing till lightman's in a square crib like mine, as if you were in a flash panny?

    1828, Edward Bulwer Lytton Baron Lytton, Pelham, Or, Adventures of a Gentleman

    Toby and me were over the garden-wall the night afore last, sounding the panels of the door and shutters. The crib's barred up at night like a jail; but there's one part we can crack, safe and softly.

    1838, Charles Dickens, chapter XIX, in Oliver Twist

    My flow, my show brought me the dough / That bought me all my fancy things / My crib, my cars, my pools, my jewels.

    2003, “In da Club”, in 50 Cent, Dr. Dre, Mike Elizondo (lyrics), Get Rich or Die Tryin', performed by 50 Cent

    I knew every inch ofthis joint. I had come of age up in here, and it was more of a home to me than the crib where I rested my head each night.

    2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 109

    Never park right outside where he live He don't want his ride outside his crib 'Cause they might roll by, recognize it And then come inside at night ready to fire with Guns like he ain't got none

    2020, clipping., “Check the Lock”, in Visions of Bodies Being Burned, via Spotify

present singular third person cribs · participle present cribbing · participle past cribbed · past cribbed

1. transitiveTo place or confine in a crib.

   1 more example

   They may go to their beds and give themselves no trouble about their work, and yet in the morning the maids will find the kitchen swept up, and water brought in, and the men will find the horses in the stable well cleaned and curried, and perhaps a supply corn cribbed for them from the neighbours barns.

   1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 223

2. To shut up or confine in a narrow habitation; to cage; to cramp.

   if only the vital energy be not cribbed or cramped

   1860, Isaac Taylor, “(please specify the page)”, in Ultimate Civilization and Other Essays, London: Bell and Daldy […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   But now I am cabin'd, cribbed, confined, bound in, / To saucy doubts and fears

   a. 1606, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, act 3, scene 4, lines 23–24

3. transitiveTo collect one or more passages and/or references for use in a speech, written document or as an aid for some task; to create a crib sheet.

   I cribbed the recipe from the Food Network site, but made a few changes of my own.

4. informaltransitiveTo plagiarize; to copy; to cheat.

   This subplot—as well as a few other threads that have been teased from the Star Wars saga’s next installment—prompts another question: just how much of this film’s plot will be cribbed from The Empire Strikes Back?

   2017 August 9, Laura Bradley, “How Star Wars: The Last Jedi Will—and Won’t—Echo The Empire Strikes Back”, in Vanity Fair

   1 more example

   He then proceeded to patch his tags together with the help of his Gradus, producing an incongruous and feeble result of eight elegiac lines, the minimum quantity for his form, and finishing up with two highly moral lines extra, making ten in all, which he cribbed entire from one of his books, beginning "O genus humanum," and which he himself must have used a dozen times before, whenever an unfortunate or wicked hero, of whatever nation or language under the sun, was the subject.

   1857, Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's School Days

5. intransitiveTo install timber supports, as with cribbing.
6. archaictransitiveTo steal or embezzle.

   There are a brace of birds and hare, that I cribbed this morning out of a basket of game.

   1772, Samuel Foote, The Nabob, published 1778, act 1, page 22

   2 more examples

   It was very easy, Briggs said, to make a galley-slave of a boy all the half-year, and then score him up idle; and to crib two dinners a-week out of his board, and then score him up greedy; but that wasn’t going to be submitted to, he believed, was it?

   1848, Charles Dickens, “14”, in Dombey and Son

   "Somebody crib the mayor's crown jools, or has some joyous cuss eloped with the auto patrol?"

   1920 June 28, The Electrical Experimenter, New York, page 151, column 2

7. IndiaTo complain, to grumble

   She calls on the neighbours, she's out half the time and doesn't answer the telephone, and when I start cribbing she just laughs.

   1957, L.P.Hartley, chapter XI, in Hireling, page 90

8. To crowd together, or to be confined, as if in a crib or in narrow accommodations.

   […] who ſought to make the glory of the Nation and Church of England, which was ever Regal and Epiſcopal ſince it was Chriſtian, truckle under a Scotch Canopy, and to make Biſhops to crib in a Presbyterian trundle-bed; as much as Kingly Majeſtie, to be confounded with Democracy.

   1661, John Gauden, Anti Baal-Berith, page 35

9. intransitiveTo seize the manger or other solid object with the teeth and draw in wind.
10. computingTo use a known piece of information corresponding to a section of encrypted text, to work out the remaining sections.