GAB

AI In plain words

Writing a short explanation…

Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.

gab¹

  • /ɡæb/

Rhymes with -æb

Where it comes from

Etymology tree

Proto-Germanic *gabbōnąder.

Old Norse gabbder.

Middle English gab

English gab

Inherited from Middle English gab, gabbe, from Old Norse gabb (“jest, mockery”) (whence also Old French gab, gap (“mockery, derision, scorn”)). Cognate with Icelandic gabb (“hoax”).

noun gabs

  1. countable, uncountable Idle chatter. Ah, find some chirk in ye, lad. Now is the time for gab and chatter. Y’best be enjoying it. Come a fortnight and the brace of us’ll be wantin’ to be ever silent as the tomb. Even to clap eyes on each other... It’ll make y’hotter than hell!
  2. countable, uncountable The mouth or gob.
  3. countable, uncountable One of the open-forked ends of rods controlling reversing in early steam engines. Loose eccentric reversing gear gave way about 1836 to the early forms of gab motion. [...] In 1840 Stephenson evolved a motion in which the gabs were connected directly to the valve spindle.

gab²

  • /ɡæb/

Rhymes with -æb

Where it comes from

Etymology tree

Proto-Germanic *gabbōną

Proto-West Germanic *gabbōn

Old English gabbander.

Middle English gabbender.

English gab

From Middle English gabben, from Old English gabban (“to scoff, mock, delude, jest”) and Old Norse gabba (“to mock, make sport of”); both from Proto-Germanic *gabbōną (“to mock, jest”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰeh₁bʰ- (“to be split, be forked, gape”).

Cognate with Scots gab (“to mock, prate”), North Frisian gabben (“to jest, sport”), Middle Dutch gabben (“to mock”), Middle Low German gabben (“to jest, have fun”).

verb gabs · gabbing · gabbed

  1. intransitive, obsolete To jest; to tell lies in jest; exaggerate; lie. He would chant his own doughty deeds, and “gab,” as the Norman word was, in painful earnest, while they gabbed only in sport, and outvied each other in impossible fanfaronades”
  2. intransitive To talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects. "That Mrs. Mender gives a bloke the ear-ache; thinks a bloke's got all day to waste listening to her gab."
  3. obsolete, transitive To speak or tell falsely.

GAB³

noun GABs

  1. abbreviation, countable, initialism, uncountable Initialism of gender-atypical behavior.gender-atypical behavior

Gab⁴

Where it comes from

Clipping of Gabriel.

proper noun

  1. A diminutive of the male given name Gabriel.

Talk about this word