dibble
/ˈdɪb(ə)l/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 2.26 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A pointed implement used to make holes in the ground in which to set out plants or to plant seeds.
noun
A police officer, especially one serving with Greater Manchester Police.
British usage; Countable; Slang
name
A surname originating as a patronymic.
Example Sentences
- "Pol[ixenes] Then make you[r] Garden rich in Gilly'vors, / And do not call them baſtards. / Per[dita] Ile not put / The Dible in earth, to ſet one ſlip of them: […]"
- "Earth'd up, here lies an imp o' hell, / Planted by Satan's dibble— / Poor silly wretch, he's damned himsel', / To save the Lord the trouble."
- "In sowing time ne'er would I dibble take, / Or drop a seed, till thou wast wide awake; […]"
- "And as in winter, when the frost breaks up, / At winter's end, before the spring begins, / And a warm west wind blows, and thaw sets in— / After an hour a dripping sound is heard / In all the forests, and the soft-strewn snow / Under the trees is dibbled thick with holes, / And from the boughs the snowloads shuffle down; […]"
- "It was Digory who had the bright idea of eating four each and planting the ninth; for, as he said, "if the bar off the lamp-post turned into a little light-tree, why shouldn’t this turn into a toffee-tree?" So they dibbled a small hole in the turf and buried the piece of toffee."
- "There is another method of ſowing wheat in rows uſed in ſome counties, which is termed dibbling in the language of agricultors, and consiſts in making perpendicular holes one inch and half or two inches deep, as is commonly done in planting potato-roots; theſe holes are made by a man, who has a proper ſtaff ſhod with iron in each hand, and as he walks backwards is able by looking at the part of the row already made to keep nearly in a ſtraight line, and to make two holes at once at about nine inches diſtant from each other every way."
Etymology
Possibly dib (“to dab lightly”) + -le (frequentative suffix indicating repetition or continuousness); however, the word dibble is attested earlier than dib.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈdɪb(ə)l/
- British English: /ˈdɪb(ə)l/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Law.