Word of the Day for Tuesday, February 7, 2012
crib \krib\, verb:
1. To pilfer or steal, especially to plagiarize.
2. To confine in or as if in a crib.
3. To provide with a crib or cribs.
4. To line with timber or planking.
5. Informal. A. To use a crib in examinations, homework, translating, etc. B. To steal; plagiarize.
6. (Of a horse) to practice cribbing.
noun:
1. A child's bed with enclosed sides.
2. A stall or pen for cattle.
3. A rack or manger for fodder, as in a stable or barn.
4. A bin for storing grain, salt, etc.
5. Informal. A. A translation, list of correct answers, or other illicit aid used by students while reciting, taking exams, or the like; pony. B. Plagiarism. C. A petty theft.
6. A room, closet, etc., in a factory or the like, in which tools are kept and issued to workers.
7. A shallow, separate section of a bathing area, reserved for small children.
8. Any confined space.
9. Slang. A house, shop, etc., frequented by thieves or regarded by thieves as a likely place for burglarizing.
10. Building Trades, Civil Engineering. Any of various cellular frameworks of logs, squared timbers, or steel or concrete objects of similar form assembled in layers at right angles, often filled with earth and stones and used in the construction of foundations, dams, retaining walls, etc.
11. A barrier projecting part of the way into a river and then upward, acting to reduce the flow of water and as a storage place for logs being floated downstream.
12. A lining for a well or other shaft.
13. Slang. One's home; pad.
14. Cribbage. A set of cards made up by equal contributions from each player's hand, and belonging to the dealer.
15. A cheap, ill-kept brothel.
16. A wicker basket.
17. British, Australian. Lunch, especially a cold lunch carried from home to work and eaten by a labourer on the job; snack.
An otherwise dense early college roommate used to prate that "reality is mankind's greatest illusion," something he cribbed from a psych professor who got it from Erik Erikson.
-- Jim Harrison, The Road Home
Radford's a lazy bastard, you know, and apparently he cribbed a bunch of his lecture notes from somewhere — some old tome he thought nobody had ever read or ever would read — but Archy spotted it instantly, of course, and is making a hell of a stink.
-- Edith Taylor, The Serpent Under It
Crib comes from the German word krebe which meant basket. Its alternate sense meaning "to steal" arose in the 1600s and leant itself to the current sense of "to plagiarize."
