What does "crib" mean?
Crib: A stall for oxen or other cattle. Where no oxen are, the crib is clean. Prov. xiv.
Additional senses
- 2.3. A small inclosed bedstead or cot for a child.
- 3.A box or bin, or similar wooden structure, for storing grain, salt, etc.; as, a crib for corn or oats.
- 4.A hovel; a hut; a cottage. Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, . . . Than in the perfumed chambers of the great Shak.
- 5.(Mining) A structure or frame of timber for a foundation, or for supporting a roof, or for lining a shaft.
- 6.A structure of logs to be anchored with stones; -- used for docks, pier, dams, etc.
- 7.A small raft of timber. [Canada]
- 8.A small theft; anything purloined;; a plagiaris [Colloq.] The Latin version technically called a crib. Ld. Lytton. Occasional perusal of the Pagan writers, assisted by a crib. Wilkie Collins.
- 9.A miner's luncheon. [Cant] Raymond.
- 10.(Card Playing) The discarded cards which the dealer can use in scoring points in cribbage.
- 11.To shut up or confine in a narrow habitation; to cage; to cramp. If only the vital energy be not cribbed or cramped. I. Taylor. Now I am cabin'd, cribbed, confined. Shak.
- 12.To pilfer or purloin; hence, to steal from an author; to appropriate; to plagiarize; as, to crib a line from Milton. [Colloq.] Child, being fond of toys, cribbed the necklace. Dickens.
- 13.To crowd together, or to be confined, as in a crib or in narrow accommodations. [R.] Who sought to make . . . bishops to crib in a Presbyterian trundle bed. Gauden.
- 14.To make notes for dishonest use in recitation or examination. [College Cant]
- 15.To seize the manger or other solid object with the teeth and draw in wind; -- said of a horse.
Sources
- Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).
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- Published: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00 · Modified: 2026-07-17T00:00:00-07:00