Word.ws English Dictionary

fib

/fɪb/

fib noun: a lie, especially one that is more or less inconsequential.

Noun (1)

fib (plural fibs)

  1. (informal) A lie, especially one that is more or less inconsequential.
    • Aſk me no queſtions, and I'll tell you no fibs.1773, [Oliver] Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer: Or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. […], London: […] F[rancis] Newbery, […], →OCLC, Act III, page 51
    • Wouldn’t that serve as an excuse, in Boston? I am told they are very sincere; they don't tell fibs.1878 July–October, Henry James, Jr., chapter VI, in The Europeans. A Sketch. […], volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., published 1878, →OCLC, page 226
  2. (informal, rare) A liar.
    • "Oh! you dreadful fib," said Flora.1861, Henry Kingsley, Ravenshoe

Verb (1)

fib (third-person singular simple present fibs, present participle fibbing, simple past and past participle fibbed)

  1. (informal, intransitive) To lie, especially more or less inconsequentially.

Noun (2)

fib (plural fibs)

  1. (informal) The fibula.

Verb (2)

fib (third-person singular simple present fibs, present participle fibbing, simple past and past participle fibbed)

  1. (archaic, thieves' cant) To punch, especially a series of punches in rapid succession; to beat; to hit; to strike.
    • Fib the cove's quarron in the rumpad for the lour in his bung; beat the fellow in the highway for the money in his purse.1785, Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 2nd edition, published 1788, To Fib
    • The Chicken himself attributed this punishment to his having had the misfortune to get into Chancery early in the proceedings, when he was severely fibbed by the Larkey one, and heavily grassed.1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    pummel

Noun (3)

fib (plural fibs)

  1. (neologism) A kind of experimental poem where the number of syllables in each line is the next succeeding Fibonacci number.

Noun (4) capitalized: FIB

FIB (plural FIBs)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of focused ion beam.
  2. (abbreviation, derogatory, initialism, offensive, Wisconsin) Initialism of fucking Illinois bastard.
  3. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of flying inflatable boat.

fib meaning in Indonesian

fib in Indonesian

a more or less inconsequential lie
bisa-bisaan, bohong, bokis
to tell a more or less inconsequential lie
berbohong, bisa-bisaan, ngebokis

Examples of fib in a sentence

  • As Biggs and his party arrived, I heard Hawkins say to Berry, "For heaven’s sake, my boy, fib with your right, and mind his left hand!"1852, William Makepeace Thackeray, “The Fight at Slaughter House”, in Men's Wives, page 16:
  • Answer me this: Hast thou ever fibbed a chouse quarrons in the Rome pad for the loure in his bung?"1883, Howard Pyle, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood […], New York, N.Y.: […] Charles Scribner’s Sons […], →OCLC, part sixth, page 207:

Synonyms of fib

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of fib

Forms of fib

Noun
pluralfibs
pluralFIBs
Verb
third-person singular presentfibs
present participlefibbing
past participlefibbed
pastfibbed

Plural of fib: fibs

Origin of fib

Unknown. Probably from fable; compare fible-fable (“nonsense”).

Clipping of fibula.

Short for Fibonacci.

Words formed from fib

Words that rhyme with fib

11 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about fib

What does fib mean?
Fib means a lie, especially one that is more or less inconsequential.
What is fib in Indonesian?
Fib in Indonesian is bisa-bisaan, bohong, bokis. See Fib meaning in Indonesian.
How do you use fib in a sentence?
As Biggs and his party arrived, I heard Hawkins say to Berry, "For heaven’s sake, my boy, fib with your right, and mind his left hand!"
What part of speech is fib?
Fib can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce fib?
Fib is pronounced /fɪb/.
What is the plural of fib?
The plural of fib is fibs.

Words near fib in the dictionary

  1. fiatsplainer
  2. fiatsplainers
  3. fiatsplaining
  4. fiatsplains
  5. fiawol
  6. fib
  7. FIBA
  8. fibbed
  9. fibber
  10. Fibber McGee's closet
  11. fibberies

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fib (page history and authors); FIB (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-fib.wav.

Cite this entry: “fib.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fib. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.