Gibraltar
(dʒɪˈbrɒltə(r), -ɔː-)
Forms (see 2 below).
1. The name of a fortified town on the south coast of Spain, since 1704 a British possession. Used fig. for: An impregnable stronghold.
| 1856 Emerson Eng. Traits, Manners Wks. (Bohn) II. 50 In this Gibraltar of propriety, mediocrity gets intrenched, and consolidated. |
† 2. (In corrupted forms gibaltar, giberaltar). ? A Gibraltar-monkey. Obs.
| 1592 G. Harvey Pierce's Super. 158 Asse, and worse then a Cumane Asse, and foole, and dolt, and idiot..and dodi⁓poul, and Gibaltar. 1608 Merry Devil Edmonton (1617) B 2 b, Let me cling to your flanks, my nimble Giberalters. |
3. A kind of sweetmeat; a piece of this. More fully Gibraltar rock.
| 1831 Hawthorne in Hawthorne & Wife (1885) I. 126, I send Susannah's Gibraltars. There were fourteen of them originally. 1851 Mayhew Lond. Labour I. 203 Gibraltar rock and Wellington pillars used to be flavoured with ginger, but these ‘sweeties’ are exploded. 1883 Harper's Mag. Aug. 460/1 The gibraltars and the silver pieces that Mr. Morley..bestowed upon him. 1886 Mrs. Bates (Eleanor Putnam) Old Salem, Two Salem Inst. 64 The Gibraltar..is a white and delicate candy, flavored with lemon or peppermint. |
4. attrib. and Comb. In names of things belonging to Gibraltar, as Gibraltar ape, the Barbary ape, Macaca sylvana, esp. a member of the colony of these animals living on the rock of Gibraltar; Gibraltar-monkey, -stone, -swift (see quots.).
| 1770 G. White Selborne xxxiii. 88 Scopoli seems to me to have found the hirundo melba, the great Gibraltar swift, in Tyrol, without knowing it. 1884 Cassell's Encycl. Dict., Gibraltar-monkey, Inuus ecaudatus, an originally African monkey, a colony of which is wild on the rocks of Gibraltar. Ibid., Gibraltar stone, stalagmite from a cavern in the rock of Gibraltar. 1932 S. Zuckerman Soc. Life Monkeys iii. 49 The young of the Gibraltar ape, Macaca sylvana, are born in spring and early summer. 1968 Sunday Tel. 20 Oct. 3/5 He has had to be content with Gibraltar apes. |
Hence Gibralˈtarian, Giˈbraltarine, an inhabitant or native of Gibraltar.
| 1883 Athenæum 7 Apr. 438/3 Tangier..has long been one of the holiday haunts of the Gibraltarines. 1896 J. Thomson Afr. Explorer ix. 209 Fortunately he fell in with a Gibraltarian. |