fib

American  

[fib] / fɪb /

noun

1. a small or trivial lie; minor falsehood.

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verb (used without object)

fibbed, fibbing

1. to tell a fib.

fib British  

/ fɪb /

noun

1. a trivial and harmless lie

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verb

1. (intr) to tell such a lie

Related Words

See falsehood.

Other Word Forms

• fibber noun
• fibster noun
• unfibbing adjective

Etymology

Origin of fib

1560–70; short for fibble-fable nonsense, gradational compound based on fable

Example Sentences

By the way, they also confess to occasionally fibbing about “overqualificiations” to spare job applicants’ egos.

From The Wall Street Journal

And a few moments later a voice next to us describes another case: "Six-year-old girl, she was hit by an electric bike, she has a closed tib/fib fracture."

From BBC

"Perhaps the starkest," Dr Rogers said, were her attempts to explain the cancer fib.

From BBC

But Ulman has strung together a net of interesting observations: glances, insults, mistaken presumptions and gaslighting fibs.

From Los Angeles Times

Her living voice — her wit and insecurities, her vanities and fibs, the whole of her mind as she herself came to know it.

From Salon