gin

Noun (1)

gin (countable and uncountable, plural gins)

1. A colourless non-aged alcoholic liquor made by distilling fermented grains such as barley, corn, oats or rye with juniper berries; the base for many cocktails.
2. (uncountable) Gin rummy.
3. Drawing the best card or combination of cards.
   • Johnny Chan held jack-nine, and hit gin when a queen-ten-eight board was dealt out.

Noun (2)

gin (plural gins)

1. (obsolete) A trick; a device or instrument.
2. (obsolete) A scheme; contrivance; artifice; a figurative trap or snare.
   • The church dores were sparred,
     Fast boltyd and barryd,
     Yet wyth a prety gyn
     I fortuned to come in, […]c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, →OCLC, page 64, lines 91–94
   • treason and deceiptfull gin1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
3. A snare or trap for game.
   • It was the cry of a rabbit caught in a gin.1895, Thomas Hardy, “IV-ii”, in Jude the Obscure, London: Osgood
4. A machine for raising or moving heavy objects, consisting of a tripod formed of poles united at the top, with a windlass, pulleys, ropes, etc.
5. A hoisting drum, usually vertical; a whim.
6. A pile driver.
7. A windpump.
8. A cotton gin.
9. An instrument of torture worked with screws.

Verb (1)

gin (third-person singular simple present gins, present participle ginning, simple past and past participle ginned)

1. (transitive) To remove the seeds from cotton with a cotton gin.
2. (transitive) To trap something in a gin.

Verb (2)

IPA/ɡɪn/

gin (third-person singular simple present gins, present participle ginning, simple past gan, past participle gun)

1. (Early, Modern, archaic) To begin.
   • Gon. All three of them are deſperate : their great guilt / (Like poyſon giuen to worke a great time after) / Now gins to bite the ſpirits :[…]1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published...

Noun (3)

gin (plural gins)

1. (Australia, ethnic, slur, now considered offensive) An Aboriginal woman.
   • His next shot was discharged amongst the mob, and most unfortunately wounded the gin already mentioned ; who, with a child fastened to her back, slid down the bank, and lay, apparently dying, with her legs in the water.1869, Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, volume 1, page 273
   • On December 28, in the same year [1828], he [John Allen] fought single handed a tribe of native blacks, numbering from thirteen to eighteen, besides "gins" to bring them spears, waddies, etc.1879 December 31, “Obituary”, in The Hobart Mercury, page 2

   Synonyms:

   lubra

Conjunction

IPA/ɡɪn/

gin

1. (Appalachia, Northern England, Scotland, Southern US) If.
   • […]for pronouncing according as one would ſay at London I would eat more cheeſe if I had it, the Northern man ſaith, Ay ſuld eat mare cheeſe gin ay hadet, and the Weſterne man ſaith Chud eat more cheeſe an chad it.1605, Richard Verstegan, Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, in Antiquities: Concerning the Most Noble, and Renowned English Nation
   • Gin the plough rests on the bank, / The loom, the nation, dies.1804, Robert Couper, Poetry, I. 196

Noun (4) capitalized: Gin

Gin (plural Gins)

1. An ethnic Vietnamese, in reference to those whose lands are in China.

   Synonyms:

   Jing, Kinh