fib

• IPA^(key): /fɪb/

  • Audio (Southern England)

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• Rhymes: -ɪb

Unknown. Probably from fable; compare fibble-fable (“nonsense”).

fib (plural fibs)

1. (informal) A lie, especially one that is more or less inconsequential.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:lie

   • 1773, [Oliver] Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer: Or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. […], London: […] F[rancis] Newbery, […], →OCLC, Act III, page 51:

     Aſk me no queſtions, and I'll tell you no fibs.

   • 1878, Henry James, chapter 6, in The Europeans‎, Macmillan and Co.:

     Wouldn’t that serve as an excuse, in Boston? I am told they are very sincere; they don't tell fibs.

2. (informal, rare) A liar.
   • 1861, Henry Kingsley, Ravenshoe:

     "Oh! you dreadful fib," said Flora.

fib (third-person singular simple present fibs, present participle fibbing, simple past and past participle fibbed)

1. (informal, intransitive) To lie, especially more or less inconsequentially.

• fibber
• fibbery
• fibster

• pilfer

• “fib”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC. (etymology)
• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “fib”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Clipping of fibula.

fib (plural fibs)

1. (medicine, informal) The fibula.

• tib

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

fib (third-person singular simple present fibs, present participle fibbing, simple past and past participle fibbed)

1. (archaic, thieves' cant, boxing) To punch, especially a series of punches in rapid succession; to beat; to hit; to strike.
   • 1785, Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue‎, 2nd edition, published 1788, To Fib:

     Fib the cove's quarron in the rumpad for the lour in his bung; beat the fellow in the highway for the money in his purse.

   • 1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC:

     The Chicken himself attributed this punishment to his having had the misfortune to get into Chancery early in the proceedings, when he was severely fibbed by the Larkey one, and heavily grassed.

   • 1852, William Makepeace Thackeray, “The Fight at Slaughter House”, in Men's Wives, page 16:

     As Biggs and his party arrived, I heard Hawkins say to Berry, "For heaven’s sake, my boy, fib with your right, and mind his left hand!"

   • 1865, Grantley Berkeley, “Eton Boys”, in My Life and Recollections, volume 1, page 311:

     Then there was a wild scuffle and a furious outcry, and all the bargemen for a moment seemed to hug me and themselves too; when, as there was no room to hit out, in the phraseology of the ring, I fibbed at half-a-dozen waistcoats and faces with all my might and main.

   • 1883, Howard Pyle, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood […], New York, N.Y.: […] Charles Scribner’s Sons […], →OCLC, part sixth, page 207:

     Quoth he, "Thou dost surely jest when thou sayest that thou dost not understand such words. Answer me this: Hast thou ever fibbed a chouse quarrons in the Rome pad for the loure in his bung?"

• pummel

• fibbing (“pummelling”)
• fibbing-gloak
• fibbing-match

• John S[tephen] Farmer; W[illiam] E[rnest] Henley, compilers (1891) “fib”, in Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present. […], volume II, [London: […] Harrison and Sons] […], →OCLC, page 387.

Short for Fibonacci.

fib (plural fibs)

1. (neologism) A kind of experimental poem where the number of syllables in each line is the next succeeding Fibonacci number.

• BFI, BIF, FBI, IBF, bif

fib (nominative plural fibs)

1. weakness

• fibot