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 *gabbaną (“to mock, jest”), from Proto-Indo-European *ghabh- (“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”).

• IPA^(key): /ɡæb/
• Rhymes: -æb

gab (countable and uncountable, plural gabs)

1. Idle chatter.
2. The mouth or gob.
3. One of the open-forked ends of rods controlling reversing in early steam engines.

• See also Thesaurus:talkative

• begab
• gabby
• gift of the gab

gab (third-person singular simple present gabs, present participle gabbing, simple past and past participle gabbed)

1. (intransitive, obsolete) To jest; to tell lies in jest; exaggerate; lie.
2. (intransitive) To talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects.
3. (transitive, obsolete) To speak or tell falsely.

• ABG, AGB, BGA, GBA, bag

gab

1. a large dove

From Old Norse gap, verbal noun to gapa (“to gape”).

gab n (singular definite gabet, plural indefinite gab)

1. mouth, jaws
2. yawn
3. gap

• IPA^(key): /ɡaːp/

• Audio (Austria)

  (file)

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aːp

gab

1. First-person singular preterite of geben.
2. Third-person singular preterite of geben.

• gaab
• gap

Borrowed from Old Norse gabb.

gab m (oblique plural gas, nominative singular gas, nominative plural gab)

1. joke
   • circa 1177, Chrétien de Troyes, Le Chevalier de la Charrette, page 50 (of the Livres de Poche Lettres gothiques edition, →ISBN, line 96:

     Est ce a certes ou a gas?

     Is this certain or in jest?

• gaber

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (gab)
• gab on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub