crib
- a child's bed with enclosed sides.
- a stall or pen for cattle.
- a rack or manger for fodder, as in a stable or barn.
- a bin for storing grain, salt, etc.
- Informal.
- a translation, list of correct answers, or other illicit aid used by students while reciting, taking exams, or the like; pony.
- plagiarism.
- a petty theft.
- a room, closet, etc., in a factory or the like, in which tools are kept and issued to workers.
- a shallow, separate section of a bathing area, reserved for small children.
- any confined space.
- Slang. a house, shop, etc., frequented by thieves or regarded by thieves as a likely place for burglarizing.
- Building Trades, Civil Engineering. any of various cellular frameworks of logs, squared timbers, or steel or concrete objects of similar form assembled in layers at right angles, often filled with earth and stones and used in the construction of foundations, dams, retaining walls, etc.
- a barrier projecting part of the way into a river and then upward, acting to reduce the flow of water and as a storage place for logs being floated downstream.
- a lining for a well or other shaft.
- Slang. one's home; pad.
- Cribbage. a set of cards made up by equal contributions from each player's hand, and belonging to the dealer.
- a cheap, ill-kept brothel.
- a wicker basket.
- British, Australian. lunch, especially a cold lunch carried from home to work and eaten by a laborer on the job; snack.
- Informal. to pilfer or steal, especially to plagiarize (another's writings or ideas).
- to confine in or as if in a crib.
- to provide with a crib or cribs.
- to line with timber or planking.
- Informal.
- to use a crib in examinations, homework, translating, etc.
- to steal; plagiarize.
- (of a horse) to practice cribbing.
Origin of crib
Examples from the Web for crib
Contemporary Examples of crib
After lunch, I put Julia in her crib for a nap, and though she struggled, the excitement of the day took her under.
My chest pressed into the foot of the crib, arms outstretched through bars, I wailed at an open door to an empty staircase.
Sally was a year younger than me but she had a real bed, and I still had a crib.
Did Geert Wilders, the famously xenophobic Dutch politician, crib from the Nazis for his latest anti-immigrant tirade?
Lynch, ever the spirited mind in flight, never had to crib much from infatuations of college boys.
Historical Examples of crib
She started forward, but Martin stepped between herself and the crib.
DustMr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
How'd you like to be lyin' helpless in a crib with a big rat gnawin' your ear?
A Little Book of Profitable TalesEugene Field
"A crib that will soon house more than corn," said the sergeant.
The Rock of ChickamaugaJoseph A. Altsheler
The farmer might come out at any time to his crib, and they felt that they must be up and away.
The Rock of ChickamaugaJoseph A. Altsheler
For their construing I have been given what schoolboys call a crib.
Another SheafJohn Galsworthy
crib
- a child's bed with slatted wooden sides; cot
- a cattle stall or pen
- a fodder rack or manger
- a bin or granary for storing grain, etc
- a small crude cottage or room
- US informal a house or residence
- NZ a weekend cottage: term is South Island usage only
- any small confined space
- informal a brothel
- a wicker basket
- a representation of the manger in which the infant Jesus was laid at birth
- informal a theft, esp of another's writing or thoughts
- Also called (esp US): pony informal, mainly British a translation of a foreign text or a list of answers used by students, often illicitly, as an aid in lessons, examinations, etc
- short for cribbage
- cribbage the discard pile
- Also called: cribwork a framework of heavy timbers laid in layers at right angles to one another, used in the construction of foundations, mines, etc
- a storage area for floating logs contained by booms
- Australian and NZ a packed lunch taken to work
- (tr) to put or enclose in or as if in a crib; furnish with a crib
- (tr) informal to steal (another's writings or thoughts)
- (intr) informal to copy either from a crib or from someone else during a lesson or examination
- (tr) to line (a construction hole) with timber beams, logs, or planks
- (intr) informal to grumble
Word Origin for crib
Word Origin and History for crib
Old English cribbe "manger, fodder bin in cowsheds and fields," from a West Germanic root (cf. Old Saxon kribbia "manger;" Old Frisian and Middle Dutch kribbe; Old High German krippa, German Krippe "crib, manger") probably related to German krebe "basket." Meaning "child's bed with barred sides" is 1640s; probably from frequent use in reference to the manger where infant Jesus was laid. Thieves' slang for "dwelling house" dates to at least 1812, but late 20c. use probably is independent. The Old High German version passed to French and became creche.
"steal," 17c. from crib (n.) in a secondary sense "a basket;" this probably also is the source of student slang meaning "plagiarize" (1778). Related: Cribbed; cribbing.