See also: Gab, GAB, gãb, gąb, gab-, -gab-, ġab, and ğab

English edit

Pronunciation edit

  • IPA(key): /ɡæb/
    • (file)
  • Rhymes: -æb

Etymology 1 edit

Inherited from Middle English gab, gabbe, from Old Norse gabb (jest, mockery) (whence also Old French gab, gap (mockery, derision, scorn)). Cognate with Icelandic gabb (hoax).

Noun edit

gab (countable and uncountable, plural gabs)

  1. Idle chatter.
  2. The mouth or gob.
  3. One of the open-forked ends of rods controlling reversing in early steam engines.
    • 1940 July, S. Richards, “Locomotive Valve gear Development”, in Railway Magazine, page 412:
      Loose eccentric reversing gear gave way about 1836 to the early forms of gab motion. [...] In 1840 Stephenson evolved a motion in which the gabs were connected directly to the valve spindle.
Derived terms edit
Translations edit

Etymology 2 edit

From Middle English gabben, from Old English gabban (to scoff, mock, delude, jest) and Old Norse gabba (to mock, make sport of); both from Proto-Germanic *gabbōną (to mock, jest), from Proto-Indo-European *ghabh- (to be split, be forked, gape). Cognate with Scots gab (to mock, prate), North Frisian gabben (to jest, sport), Middle Dutch gabben (to mock), Middle Low German gabben (to jest, have fun).

Verb edit

gab (third-person singular simple present gabs, present participle gabbing, simple past and past participle gabbed)

  1. (intransitive, obsolete) To jest; to tell lies in jest; exaggerate; lie.
    • 1866, Charles Kingsley, chapter 12, in Hereward the Wake, London: Nelson, page 181:
      He would chant his own doughty deeds, and “gab,” as the Norman word was, in painful earnest, while they gabbed only in sport, and outvied each other in impossible fanfaronades”
  2. (intransitive) To talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects.
    • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 26:
      "That Mrs. Mender gives a bloke the ear-ache; thinks a bloke's got all day to waste listening to her gab."
  3. (transitive, obsolete) To speak or tell falsely.
Derived terms edit
Translations edit

Anagrams edit

Amanab edit

Noun edit

gab

  1. a large dove

Danish edit

Etymology edit

From Old Norse gap, verbal noun to gapa (to gape).

Noun edit

gab n (singular definite gabet, plural indefinite gab)

  1. mouth, jaws
  2. yawn
  3. gap

Inflection edit

German edit

Pronunciation edit

Verb edit

gab

  1. first/third-person singular preterite of geben

Old French edit

Alternative forms edit

Etymology edit

Borrowed from Old Norse gabb.

Noun edit

gab oblique singularm (oblique plural gas, nominative singular gas, nominative plural gab)

  1. joke
    • c. 1177, Chrétien de Troyes, Le Chevalier de la Charrette, page 50 (of the Livres de Poche Lettres gothiques edition, →ISBN, line 96:
      Est ce a certes ou a gas?
      Is this certain or in jest?

Related terms edit

References edit

Old High German edit

Alternative forms edit

Verb edit

gab

  1. first/third-person singular past indicative of geban