Wiktionary

gab

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

English

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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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

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gab (countable and uncountable, plural gabs)

  1. Idle chatter.
    • 2019, Robert Eggers, Max Eggers, The Lighthouse (motion picture), spoken by Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe):
      Ah, find some chirk in ye, lad. Now is the time for gab and chatter. Y’best be enjoying it. Come a fortnight and the brace of us’ll be wantin’ to be ever silent as the tomb. Even to clap eyes on each other... It’ll make y’hotter than hell!
  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
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Translations
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Etymology 2

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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

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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
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Translations
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Anagrams

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Amanab

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Noun

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gab

  1. a large dove

Danish

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Etymology

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

Noun

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gab n (singular definite gabet, plural indefinite gab)

  1. mouth, jaws
  2. yawn
  3. gap

Inflection

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Declension of gab
neuter
gender 		Singular Plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative gab gabet gab gabene
genitive gabs gabets gabs gabenes

German

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Pronunciation

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Verb

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gab

  1. first/third-person singular preterite of geben

Old French

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Old Norse gabb.

Noun

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gab oblique singular, m (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?
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References

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Old High German

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Alternative forms

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Verb

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gab

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