crib
/kɹɪb/
crib noun: a baby’s bed with high, often slatted, often moveable sides, suitable for a child who has outgrown a cradle or bassinet.
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Noun
crib (countable and uncountable, plural cribs)
- A baby’s bed with high, often slatted, often moveable sides, suitable for a child who has outgrown a cradle or bassinet.
- In two minutes I was kneeling by the child’s crib, and Sandy was dispatching servants here, there, and everywhere, all over the palace. I took in the situation almost at a glance -- membranous croup!1889, Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
- Synonyms:
- cot
- A bed for a child older than a baby.
- a day or two afterwards I learned that Miss Temple, on returning to her own room at dawn, had found me laid in the little crib; my face against Helen Burns’s shoulder, my arms round her neck. I was asleep, and Helen was -- dead.1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], “[HTTPS://WEB.ARCHIVE.ORG/WEB/20140811201712/HTTP://ETEXT.VIRGINIA.EDU/ETCBIN/OT2WWW-PUBENG?SPECFILE=%2FTEXTS%2FENGLISH%2FMODSLAENG%2FPUBLIC...
- A small sleeping berth in a packet or other small vessel.
- A wicker basket.
- A manger, a feeding trough for animals elevated off the earth or floor, especially one for fodder such as hay.
- The baby Jesus and the manger in a creche or nativity scene, consisting of statues of Mary, Joseph and various other characters such as the magi.
- A bin for drying or storing grain, such as a corn crib.
- I began to think of my horse. He, however, like an old campaigner, had taken good care of himself. I found him paying assiduous attention to the crib of Indian corn, and dexterously drawing forth and munching the ears that protruded between the bars.1835, Washington Irving, chapter 35, in A Tour on the Prairies
- A small room or covered structure, especially one of rough construction, used for storage or penning animals.
- A kitchen, a meat-house, a dairy, a crib with two stalls in the rear, one for the horse the other for the cow, were the out-buildings1871, Richard Malcolm Johnston, Dukesborough Tales
- Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: but much increase is by the strength of the ox.1611, “Proverbs 14:4”, in The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC
- A confined space, such as a cage or office cubicle.
- The singers were in a crib of wirework (like a large meat-safe or bird-cage) in one corner1846, Charles Dickens, Pictures from Italy
- A job, a position; (UK) an appointment.
- He had seen so many lean years of faithful service when the enemy held the corner on all the official cribs that, now in the days of his party’s fatness and of his own righteous reward, the habit of good, honest hustling stuck to him, and he lined up an array of pulls and indorsements that made him...1904, Forrest Crissey, Tattlings of a Retired Politician
- but if I have lost my crib and get nothing in exchange I shall feel what a soft Johnny I have been.1893, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Stockbroker’s Clerk
- A hovel, a roughly constructed building best suited to the shelter of animals but used for human habitation.
- Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, / Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, / And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, / Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,c. 1596–1599, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2, act 3, scene 1, lines 9–12
- A boxy structure traditionally built of heavy wooden timbers, to support an existing structure from below, as with a mineshaft or a building being raised off its foundation in preparation for being moved; see cribbing.
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- A collection of quotes or references for use in speaking, for assembling a written document, or as an aid to a project of some sort; a crib sheet.
- A minor theft, extortion or embezzlement, with or without criminal intent.
- The card game cribbage.
- “May we play crib, Mrs. Radford?” he asked.1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “Chapter 12”, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC
- The cards discarded by players and used by the dealer, akin to the kitty or widow in other card games.
- The cards were brought and Fanny played at cribbage with her aunt till bed-time; and as Sir Thomas was reading to himself, no sounds were heard in the room for the next two hours beyond the reckonings of the game—And that makes thirty-one, four in hand and eight in crib.1814 May 9, [Jane Austen], chapter XI, in Mansfield Park: […], volume II, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 239
- A known piece of information corresponding to a section of encrypted text, that is then used to work out the remaining sections.
- A small holiday home, often near a beach and of simple construction.
- Synonyms:
- bach
- A snack or packed lunch, especially as taken to work to eat during a break.
- He ate a thick square of banana cake from his crib and stared into the fire.2002, Alex Miller, Journey to the Stone Country, Allen & Unwin, published 2003, page 40
- A small raft made of timber.
- The stomach.
- Here's Pannum and Lap, and good Poplars of Yarrum, / To fill up the Crib, and to comfort the Quarron.1641–42, Richard Brome, A Joviall Crew, or, The Merry Beggars, published 1652, act 2
- A literal translation, usually of a work originally in Latin or Ancient Greek.
- [On Chapman's use of a Latin literal translation of Homer] As will appear, he blocked out his translation from the Latin crib, keeping one eye uneasily on the Greek, and, enlightened by Scapula or by his own poetic intuition, worked out his own rendering, often marking the departure from the Latin...1966, Millar MacLure, George Chapman: a critical study, page 171
- A cheat sheet or past test used by students; crib sheet.
- 'This is not the Berlitz School of Languages, Head of S. If you want to show off your knowledge of foreign jawbreakers, be good enough to provide a crib. Better still, write in English.'1953, Ian Fleming, “Dossier for M”, in Casino Royale, London: Pan Books, published 1955, page 16
- One’s residence, house or dwelling place, or usual place of resort.
- Why, you would not be boosing till lightman's in a square crib like mine, as if you were in a flash panny?1828, Edward Bulwer Lytton Baron Lytton, Pelham, Or, Adventures of a Gentleman
- Toby and me were over the garden-wall the night afore last, sounding the panels of the door and shutters. The crib's barred up at night like a jail; but there's one part we can crack, safe and softly.1838, Charles Dickens, chapter XIX, in Oliver Twist
Verb
crib (third-person singular simple present cribs, present participle cribbing, simple past and past participle cribbed)
- To place or confine in a crib.
- They may go to their beds and give themselves no trouble about their work, and yet in the morning the maids will find the kitchen swept up, and water brought in, and the men will find the horses in the stable well cleaned and curried, and perhaps a supply corn cribbed for them from the neighbours...1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 223
- To shut up or confine in a narrow habitation; to cage; to cramp.
- if only the vital energy be not cribbed or cramped1860, Isaac Taylor, “(please specify the page)”, in Ultimate Civilization and Other Essays, London: Bell and Daldy […], →OCLC
- But now I am cabin'd, cribbed, confined, bound in, / To saucy doubts and fearsa. 1606, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, act 3, scene 4, lines 23–24
- To collect one or more passages and/or references for use in a speech, written document or as an aid for some task; to create a crib sheet.
- I cribbed the recipe from the Food Network site, but made a few changes of my own.
- To plagiarize; to copy; to cheat.
- He then proceeded to patch his tags together with the help of his Gradus, producing an incongruous and feeble result of eight elegiac lines, the minimum quantity for his form, and finishing up with two highly moral lines extra, making ten in all, which he cribbed entire from one of his books...1857, Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's School Days
- This subplot—as well as a few other threads that have been teased from the Star Wars saga’s next installment—prompts another question: just how much of this film’s plot will be cribbed from The Empire Strikes Back?2017 August 9, Laura Bradley, “How Star Wars: The Last Jedi Will—and Won’t—Echo The Empire Strikes Back”, in Vanity Fair
- To install timber supports, as with cribbing.
- To steal or embezzle.
- There are a brace of birds and hare, that I cribbed this morning out of a basket of game.1772, Samuel Foote, The Nabob, published 1778, act 1, page 22
- It was very easy, Briggs said, to make a galley-slave of a boy all the half-year, and then score him up idle; and to crib two dinners a-week out of his board, and then score him up greedy; but that wasn’t going to be submitted to, he believed, was it?1848, Charles Dickens, “14”, in Dombey and Son
- To complain, to grumble
- She calls on the neighbours, she's out half the time and doesn't answer the telephone, and when I start cribbing she just laughs.1957, L.P.Hartley, chapter XI, in Hireling, page 90
- To crowd together, or to be confined, as if in a crib or in narrow accommodations.
- […] who ſought to make the glory of the Nation and Church of England, which was ever Regal and Epiſcopal ſince it was Chriſtian, truckle under a Scotch Canopy, and to make Biſhops to crib in a Presbyterian trundle-bed; as much as Kingly Majeſtie, to be confounded with Democracy.1661, John Gauden, Anti Baal-Berith, page 35
- To seize the manger or other solid object with the teeth and draw in wind.
- To use a known piece of information corresponding to a section of encrypted text, to work out the remaining sections.
crib meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
crib in Tamil
- குறடு, தொழு, கட்டில், குழந்தை கட்டில், தொட்டில், பல் பிடிப்பி
crib in Urdu
- ٹوکری
crib in Bengali
- নবজাতকের খাট, নাকি
crib in Malayalam
- cradle, cot, bassinet
- തൊട്ടി, തൊട്ടിൽ, ആട്ടുതൊട്ടിൽ, പിള്ളത്തൊട്ടിൽ, കളിത്തൊട്ടിൽ, പിള്ളക്കട്ടിൽ
- manger, stall, feeding trough
- പുൽത്തൊട്ടി, പുല്ലൂട്ട, പുൽക്കൂട്, പുല്ലൂട്ടി, വല്ലവട്ടി, വല്ലോട്ടി
- copy, plagiarize, poach
- പകർത്തുക, കൃത്യമായി അനുകരിക്കുക, ആശയമോഷണം നടത്തുക, നോക്കിയെഴുതുക, ഗൂഢമായി പകർത്തുക, കണ്ടെഴുതുക
More languagesFewer languages
- crib in Kannada
- ತೊಟ್ಟಿಲು, ಹಟ್ಟಿ, ತೀನಿತೊಟ್ಟಿ, ಗುಡಿಸಲು
- crib in Vietnamese
- nôi
Examples of crib in a sentence
- My flow, my show brought me the dough / That bought me all my fancy things / My crib, my cars, my pools, my jewels.2003, “In da Club”, in 50 Cent, Dr. Dre, Mike Elizondo (lyrics), Get Rich or Die Tryin', performed by 50 Cent:
- I had come of age up in here, and it was more of a home to me than the crib where I rested my head each night.2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 109:
- Franklin Clinton (Shawn Fonteno): Eh stop shootin' rockets at my crib!"2013, Rockstar Games, Grand Theft Auto V, scene: Firing rockets in Franklin's house:
- "Somebody crib the mayor's crown jools, or has some joyous cuss eloped with the auto patrol?"1920 June, The Electrical Experimenter, New York, page 151, column 2:
Synonyms of crib
Forms of crib
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | cribs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | cribs |
| present participle | cribbing |
| past participle | cribbed |
| past | cribbed |
Origin of crib
From Middle English crib, cribbe, from Old English crib, cryb, cribb, crybb (“couch, bed; manger, stall”), from Proto-West Germanic *kribbjā, from Proto-Germanic *kribjǭ (“crib, wickerwork”), from Proto-Indo-European *grebʰ-, *gerbʰ- (“bunch, bundle, tuft, clump”), from *ger- (“to turn, twist”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Kräbbe, Krääb, Krääf (“crib”), West Frisian krêbe (“crib”), Dutch krib (“crib, manger”), German Krippe (“rack, crib”), Danish krybbe (“crib”), Icelandic krubba (“crib”). Doublet of crèche. The sense of ‘stealing, taking notes, plagiarize’ seems to have developed out of the verb. The criminal sense may derive from the 'basket' sense, circa the mid 18th century, in that a poacher could conceal poachings in such a basket (see the 1772 Samuel Foote quotation). The cheating sense probably derives from the criminal sense.
Words formed from crib
Phrases with crib
Words that rhyme with crib
Questions about crib
- What does crib mean?
- Crib means a baby’s bed with high, often slatted, often moveable sides, suitable for a child who has outgrown a cradle or bassinet.
- What is crib in Tamil?
- Crib in Tamil is குறடு, தொழு, கட்டில். See Crib meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use crib in a sentence?
- My flow, my show brought me the dough / That bought me all my fancy things / My crib, my cars, my pools, my jewels.
- What part of speech is crib?
- Crib can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce crib?
- Crib is pronounced /kɹɪb/.
- What is the plural of crib?
- The plural of crib is cribs.
Words near crib in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: crib (page history and authors); crib (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); crib (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); crib (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); crib (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); crib (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-crib.ogg, EN-AU ck1 crib.ogg.
Cite this entry: “crib.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/crib. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.