cribbing

[krib-ing]

noun

1. Also called wind-sucking. Also called crib-biting. Veterinary Medicine.,  an injurious habit in which a horse bites its manger and as a result swallows air.

2. Mining.

   1. a timber lining, closely spaced, as in a shaft or raise.

   2. pieces of timber for lining a shaft, raise, etc.

3. Building Trades, Civil Engineering.,  a system of cribs, as for retaining earth or for a building or the like being moved or having its foundations rebuilt.

Word History and Origins

Origin of cribbing¹

First recorded in 1635–45; crib + -ing ¹

Example Sentences

I’ve done the same a hundred times, cribbing from emails to compose essays, from text messages to finish poems.

Read more on Salon

Thomas Weber, an expert on German history, pointed out that in modern Germany one far-right party has been cribbing wholesale from parts of the Nazi party manifesto.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Firefighters secured the truck with “a grip hoist, grade 100 chain, and 6-inch vehicle strap cribbing, straps to keep the massively heavy vehicle from rolling any further forward,” fire officials posted on Facebook.

Read more on Washington Times

In addition to grading the terrain to make the slopes gentler, he added powerful drainage systems and timber-and-concrete cribbing to keep structures in place.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The discipline already had a “massive plagiarism problem” with students borrowing computer code from friends or cribbing it from the internet, said MacKellar.

Read more on Seattle Times

Related Words

• falsification www.thesaurus.com
• infringement 
• piracy