CRIB (a word

See also:

• COMMON

common to some

See also:

• TEUTONIC
• TEUTONIC (GERMANIC) LANGUAGES

Teutonic

See also:

• LANGUAGES

languages, cf. Dutch krib and Ger. Krippe; it has a common origin with the O. Eng. " cratch," a manger or crib, cf. Fr.

See also:

• CRECHE (Fr. for a " crib " or cradle)

creche)  , a manger or framework receptacle for holding fodder for cattle and horses, and so, from early times in English, particularly the manger in which Jesus was laid . It is thus used of a " cradle," from which in form it should be distinguished as being a small bed with high closed-in sides . The word has many transferred meanings, as a rough, small hut or dwelling, from which comes the slang use of " crib " as a berth or situation, or, as a burglar's term for a house to be broken into; also, technically, in engineering for a timber framework for masonry constructed with a caisson in laying foundations below water, or in mining for a timber lining to a shaft . " Crib-biting " is a vicious habit in horses, probably due in the first instance to indigestion; the horse seizes the manger or other object in its teeth, and draws in the breath, known as " wind-sucking "; the habit may be checked by the use of a throat-strap . The slang meaning of the verb " crib," to steal, especially used of petty thefts, is probably derived from an obsolete use of the substantive for a small wicker basket; this meaning occurs in the expression " time-cribbing," used of an illicit increase of the hours of labour in a factory or workshop, especially by the running of machinery each day slightly beyond the time of ceasing work . " Crib " and " cribbing " in this sense are also applied to any unacknowledged appropriation or plagiarism from an author, and particularly to the secret copying by a schoolboy of another's work or from a book, and also to the secret use of a translation and to such translation itself . " Crib," in the game of cribbage, of which it is a shortened form, is the term for the cards thrown away by each player and scored by the dealer .