# gab
## Translingual
### Symbol

gab
* (international standards) ISO 639-3 language code for Gabri.

### See also

* Wiktionary’s coverage of Gabri terms

## English
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ɡæb/
** Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -æb

### Etymology 1

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

gab (countable and uncountable, plural gabs)
* Idle chatter.
** 2019, Robert Eggers, Max Eggers, The Lighthouse (motion picture), spoken by Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe):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!
* The mouth or gob.
* One of the open-forked ends of rods controlling reversing in early steam engines.
** 1940 July, S. Richards, “Locomotive Valve gear Development”, in Railway Magazine, page 412: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.

##### Derived terms

* bafflegab
* begab
* gabble
* gabby
* gabfest
* gift of the gab
* wide-gab

##### Translations
### Etymology 2

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

gab (third-person singular simple present gabs, present participle gabbing, simple past and past participle gabbed)
* (intransitive, obsolete) To jest; to tell lies in jest; exaggerate; lie.
** 1866, Charles Kingsley, chapter 12, in Hereward the Wake, London: Nelson, page 181: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”
* (intransitive) To talk or chatter a lot, usually on trivial subjects.
** 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 26:"That Mrs. Mender gives a bloke the ear-ache; thinks a bloke's got all day to waste listening to her gab."
* (transitive, obsolete) To speak or tell falsely.

##### Synonyms

* See also Thesaurus:speak.

##### Derived terms

* forgab
* gabber
* gabbing

##### Translations
### Anagrams

* ABG, AGB, BGA, GBA, bag

## Amanab
### Noun

gab
* a large dove

## Danish
### Etymology

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

### Noun

gab n (singular definite gabet, plural indefinite gab)
* mouth, jaws
* yawn
* gap

#### Inflection
## German
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ɡaːp/
* Audio (Austria):(file)
* Audio:(file)
* Rhymes: -aːp

### Verb

gab
* first/third-person singular preterite of geben

## Old French
### Alternative forms

* gaab
* gap

### Etymology

Borrowed from Old Norse gabb (“mock, make a joke of”).

### Noun

gab oblique singular, m (oblique plural gas, nominative singular gas, nominative plural gab)
* joke
** c. 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?

#### Related terms

* gaber

### References

* 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

## Old High German
### Alternative forms

* gap

### Verb

gab
* first/third-person singular past indicative of gëban