▪ I. † lib, n.1 Obs.
[OE. lyb(b, libb medicine, drug, potion. Cf. cheeselip.]
A charm.
| a 700 Epinal Gloss. 711 Obligamentum, lybb [Erfurt libb, Corpus lyb, lybsn]. 1577 in Pitcairn Crim. Trials I. 77 [In Perthshire] ane commoune usare of sorcerie, libbis, and charmes. |
▪ II. † lib, n.2 Cant. Obs.
[f. lib v.3]
Sleep.
| 1665 Head Eng. Rogue i. iv. (1666) 29 Bien Darkmans then, Bouse Mort and Ken The bien Coves bings awast, On Chates to trine by Rome-Coves dine, For his long lib at last. |
▪ III. lib, n.3
colloq. abbrev. liberation, freq. preceded by adj. (as gay lib) or a n. in the possessive (as men's lib, women's lib). See the defining words.
| 1970 Atlantic Monthly Mar. 116 The Lib Movement was rich in documentation of the conditioning processes. 1971 Daily Tel. 2 Dec. 7/2 Children's lib. notwithstanding, it would be hard to write a children's book without setting up some sort of standard for the child reader to admire. 1973 Guardian 3 Feb. 13/1 Lillian Thomas is a member of the Suffrage Fellowship Movement..and is delighted with the Libs. 1973 Black World Dec. 12/1 The various ‘lib’ movements, therefore, are white derivatives of the Black movement. 1974 Listener 25 Apr. 520/3 With Scots Lib, as with Women's Lib, it's no good the oppressors expecting the past to be forgotten when convenient. |
▪ IV. lib, v.1
(lɪb)
Also 7–8 libb. Now dial.
[? repr. an OE. *lybban = MDu. lubben to maim, geld, f. Teut. root *luƀ-: see left a.]
trans. To castrate, geld, ‘cut’.
| 1396 [see libbing, below]. 1500–20 Dunbar Poems lv. 5 Thair wyffis..baid tham betteis soun abyd At hame, and lib tham of the pockis. 1536 Bellenden Cron. Scot. (1821) I. p. lv, The steirkis..ar..libbit to be oxin. 1597–8 Bp. Hall Sat. ii. vii. 19 Who pares his nailes, or libs his swine. 1607 Topsell Four-f. Beasts 324 They have used to lib their Horsses and take away their stones. 1618 Chapman Hesiod 37 The bellowing Bullock lib, and Gote. 1624 Massinger Renegado ii. i, I am libbed in the breech already. 1649 Davenant Love & Honour iv. Dram. Wks. 1873 III. 164 Sure he is lib'd; he hath certainly No masculine business about him. a 1733 Shetland Acc. 28 in Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot. (1892) XXVI. 200 That none libb any beast upon Sunday. 1788 Marshall Yorksh. II. 340 To Lib, to geld male lambs and calves (horses and pigs are ‘gelded’). 1855 Robinson Whitby Gloss., Scribb'd and Libb'd, farmers' terms, or rather they are used as one word,—castrated. |
b. fig. (Cf. castrate v. 4.)
| 1577 Fulke Two Treat. agst. Papists ii. 250 In the latter end where he libbeth of the conclusion of Origens wordes, he translateth [etc.]..when he hath clipped, shauen, pared, gelded and falsified all that he can [etc.]. 1621 Bp. R. Montagu Diatribæ 419 Aristotle..wrote cxxvi. Bookes, or thereabout, περὶ πολιτειῶν..and yet none of these were libbed by Abbreuiators. |
Hence libbed ppl. a., ˈlibbing vbl. n.
| 1396 Whitby Abbey Rolls (Whitby Gloss.) Pro libbyng porcorum 10d. 1500–20 Dunbar Poems lv. 20 Sum..hes forsaekin all sic gammiss, That men callis libbing of the pockis. a 1600 Hist. Fryer Bacon in Thoms E.E. Prose Rom. (1858) I. 192 When the best libbing is. 1616 N. Riding Rec. II. 123 A libbed gilt. 1638 Ford Fancies i. ii, What a terrible sight to a libb'd breech is a sow⁓gelder! a 1693 Urquhart's Rabelais iii. xxxi. 256 Like a libbed Eunuch. 1790 Burns ‘Kind Sir, I've read your Paper’, How libbet Italy was singin'. |
▪ V. lib, v.2 dial. (Suffolk.)
‘Of a child or young animal: To suck persistently’ (Eng. Dial. Dict.).
| 1662 W. Gurnall Chr. in Arm. iii. xii. §1 (1669) 274/1 The growing child that lies libbing oftenest at the Breast. |
▪ VI. † lib, v.3 Cant. Obs.
Also 6 lyp.
[Origin unknown.]
intr. To sleep.
| 1567 Harman Caveat (1869) 84 In what lipken has thou lypped in this darkemans, whether in a lybbege or in the strummell? 1611 Middleton & Dekker Roaring Girl v. i, Oh I wud lib all the lightmans, Oh I woud lib all the darkemans. a 1700 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Lib, to Tumble or Lye together. 1859 Matsell Vocab. s.v. (F.), The coves lib together, the fellows sleep together. |
▪ VII. lib
dial. form of leap n.2
▪ VIII. † lib
abbrev. of L. libræ pounds.
| 1442 Extracts Aberd. Reg. (1844) I. 8 The sowm of iiijxx of lib. 1528 Ibid. 121 Tuenty lib. Scottis. 1596 Dalrymple tr. Leslie's Hist. Scot. vi. 333 Ane hunder libs stirling. 1655 in A. Laing Lindores Abb. xx. (1876) 238, 8 lib. of pledge in money. 1705 Hearne in Rel. Hearn. (1869) passim. |