squib
English
Etymology
Possibly imitative of a small explosion.[1]
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /skwɪb/
Audio (AU) (file) - Rhymes: -ɪb
Noun
squib (plural squibs)
- (military) A small firework that is intended to spew sparks rather than explode.
- English Navy squibs set fire to two dozen enemy ships in a Dutch harbor during the 16th-century battle against the Spanish Armada.
- 1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, OCLC 65350522:
- The making and selling of fireworks and squibs […] is punishable.
- A similar device used to ignite an explosive or launch a rocket, etc.
- (mining) A kind of slow match or safety fuse.
- (US) Any small firecracker sold to the general public, usually in special clusters designed to explode in series after a single master fuse is lit.
- (firearms) A malfunction in which the fired projectile does not have enough force behind it to exit the barrel, and thus becomes stuck.
- (automotive) The heating element used to set off the sodium azide pellets in a vehicle's airbag.
- (film, theater) In special effects, a small explosive used to replicate a bullet hitting a surface.
- (dated) A short piece of witty writing; a lampoon.
- 1774, [Oliver] Goldsmith, “Postscript”, in Retaliation: A Poem. […], 5th edition, London: […] G[eorge] Kearsly, […], OCLC 1205183311, page 21:
- Ye nevvs-paper vvitlings! ye pert ſcribbling folks! / VVho copied his ſquibs, and re-echoed his jokes, […]
- 2005, Mark Caldwell, New York Night, page 133:
- Of the dozen or so surviving articles, squibs, and letters to the editor, the most remarkable appeared in the Whip and Satirist’s February 12, 1842, issue, and disclosed the existence of a cabal of gay men in New York's otherwise wholesome nightscape of brothels and riots.
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- (dated) A writer of lampoons.
- November 1, 1709, Richard Steele, The Tatler
- The squibs are those who in the common phrase of the world are called libellers, lampooners, and pamphleteers.
- November 1, 1709, Richard Steele, The Tatler
- (law) In a legal casebook, a short summary of a legal action placed between more extensively quoted cases.
- (linguistics) A short article, often published in journals, that introduces theoretically problematic empirical data or discusses an overlooked theoretical problem. In contrast to a typical article, a squib need not answer the questions that it poses.
- 2008, William J. Idsardi, Combinatorics for Metrical Feet, in Biolinguistics Vol 2, No 2
- In this squib I will prove that the number of possible metrical parsings into feet under these assumptions […]
- 2008, William J. Idsardi, Combinatorics for Metrical Feet, in Biolinguistics Vol 2, No 2
- (archaic except in idioms) An unimportant, paltry, or mean-spirited person.
- 1591, Edmund Spenser, Mother Hubberds Tale ll. 369-371:
- Its a hard case when men of good deserving / must either driven be perforce to sterving / or asked for their pas by everie squib.
- 1591, Edmund Spenser, Mother Hubberds Tale ll. 369-371:
- (graphic design) A sketched concept or visual solution, usually very quick and not too detailed.
Derived terms
- damp squib
Translations
small firework
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device used to ignite a rocket
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short piece of witty writing
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short summary of a case
short article, often published in a journal
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unimportant, paltry, or mean-spirited person
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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Verb
squib (third-person singular simple present squibs, present participle squibbing, simple past and past participle squibbed)
- To make a sound like a small explosion.
- A Snider squibbed in the jungle.
- (colloquial, dated, transitive, intransitive) To throw squibs; to utter sarcastic or severe reflections; to contend in petty dispute.
- to squib a little debate
Translations
make a sound such as a small explosion
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References
- Douglas Harper (2001–2023), “squib”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
Anagrams
- quibs