shitgibbon
/ˈʃɪtɡɪbən/
shitgibbon noun: a contemptible person.
Noun
shitgibbon (plural shitgibbons)
- A contemptible person.
- ’Tis the Mozzer and Mark E Smith! Yes, in the year 2000, Sir Morrissey del Manc and Shitgibbon Smith will be tired old buckers, fit for the scrapheap ever since some student NME reader got to see their poetry part of the English GCSE and finished so-called “serious rock” for, in the words of Alice...1990 January 13, David Quantick, Steven Wells, “Ride the Puffin”, in New Musical Express, archived from the original on 13 Feb 2017, page 28
- Good luck and goodbye to the most sick-making,hypocritical bunch of shitgibbons i've yet encountered on the Web!2000 March 21, EvilJam32, “Re: Shall I film the Hip in London 8th June?”, in alt.music.tragically-hip (Usenet), retrieved 12 Aug 2016, message-ID <20000321082112.00798.00000750@ng-fl1.aol.com>
- A type of compound word used as an insult, consisting of a single-syllable expletive, followed by an absurd or innocuous two-syllable noun that usually forms a trochee.
- How to make a shitgibbon in two easy steps2017 February 9, Taylor Jones, “Linguists have been discussing "shit gibbon." I argue it's not entirely about gibbons.”, in languagejones.com, archived from the original on 16 Feb 2017
- At any rate, since this now seems to be an active area of linguistics research, I think we need a name for this construction. I'm going to propose "shitgibbon compounds".[2017 February 13, Gretchen McCulloch, “The orgin and constraints of “shitgibbon” compounds”, in All Things Linguistic, archived from the original on 24 Oct 2022
Examples of shitgibbon in a sentence
- get the f*ck off this newsgroup,shitgibbon!!2000 November 28, Master8 uk, “Re: MORRISSEY- "Battersea Park" 1997 VIDEO!”, in alt.music.morrissey (Usenet), retrieved 12 Aug 2016...
- And of course, cis people, you legally have the freedom to refuse to do that, but if you refuse you are being a shitgibbon.2018 November 2, Pronouns, ContraPoints (actor):
- At @GalaxyKate’s challenge I have made a bot that generates shitgibbon compounds - @shitgibbon_bot.2019 August 1, @ampepers, Twitter, archived from the original on 22 Jul 2022:
Synonyms of shitgibbon
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of shitgibbon
| plural | shitgibbons |
|---|
Origin of shitgibbon
From shit + gibbon. The insult was coined by journalist David Quantick in British music magazine NME in January 1990. The linguistics sense was coined by linguist Taylor Jones in a blog post from February 2017 (see quote), which followed an earlier blog post by linguist Ben Zimmer about the insult's origin and linguistic qualities. The posts were written shortly after the prominent use of shitgibbon as an insult by politician Daylin Leach on Twitter directed at then-US president Donald Trump. Leach's tweet may have been inspired by a similar 2016 viral tweet by user @MetalOllie, who also directed the term at Trump.
Questions about shitgibbon
- What does shitgibbon mean?
- Shitgibbon means a contemptible person.
- How do you use shitgibbon in a sentence?
- get the f*ck off this newsgroup,shitgibbon!!
- What part of speech is shitgibbon?
- Shitgibbon is a noun.
- How do you pronounce shitgibbon?
- Shitgibbon is pronounced /ˈʃɪtɡɪbən/.
- What is the plural of shitgibbon?
- The plural of shitgibbon is shitgibbons.
Words near shitgibbon in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: shitgibbon (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-shitgibbon.wav.
Cite this entry: “shitgibbon.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shitgibbon. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.