cut of one's jib

Meanings

nouncut of one's jib (plural cut of their jibs or cuts of their jibs)

plural cut of their jibs · plural cuts of their jibs

datedidiomaticA person's general appearance, manner, or style.First known use early 19th c.
I axes you, because I see you're a sailor by the cut of your jib.
1833, [Frederick Marryat], chapter IV, in Peter Simple. […], volume I, London: Saunders and Otley, […], published 1834, →OCLC, page 20
5 more examples
We have only farther to notice Meg's mode of conducting herself towards chance travellers, who, […] stumbled upon her house of entertainment. Her reception of these was as precarious as the hospitality of a savage nation to sailors shipwrecked on their coast. […] [I]f she disliked what the sailor calls the cut of their jibb—or if, above all, they were critical about their accommodations, none so likely as Meg to give them what in her country is called a sloan.
1823 December 23 (indicated as 1824), [Walter Scott], “An Old-world Landlady”, in St Ronan’s Well. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, pages 27–28
About eleven o'clock, the captains who were to be our Minos and our Rhadamanthus, made their appearance, and we all agreed that we did not much like the "cut of their jibs."
1829, [Frederick Marryat], chapter V, in The Naval Officer; or, Scenes and Adventures in the Life of Frank Mildmay. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 132
"You'll not know him from any one else," said Mrs Avenel. "Well, that is a good one! Not know an Avenel! We've all the same cut of the jib—have we not, father?"
1853, Pisistratus Caxton [pseudonym; Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter XXIII, in “My Novel”; Or Varieties in English Life […], volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book fourth, page 366
I have seen that girl on the deck, and I like the cut of her jib. I like the way she walks. Her independence suits me.
1896, Robert Barr, chapter XIII, in A Woman Intervenes: Or The Mistress of the Mine, New York, N.Y.; London: Frederick A[bbott] Stokes Company, →OCLC, page 122
Jack thinks, by the cut of their jibs, they were Frenchmen, one an officer and the other his servant.
1911, John Oxenham [pseudonym; William Arthur Dunkerley], “An Unexpected Guest”, in The Coil of Carne, Toronto, Ont.: The Copp, Clark Co., →OCLC, page 157

Origin

From cut (“a way of shaping or styling”) and jib (“a triangular staysail set forward of the foremast”), originally a nautical expression alluding to the identification of far-off sailing vessels by the shape of their sails. The idiomatic sense may have been influenced by the similarity of a triangular jib sail to a person’s nose.

Full word history & related roots →