garb
/ɡɑː(ɹ)b/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.01 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A wheatsheaf.
noun
A measure of arrows in the Middle Ages.
Example Sentences
- "This new-comer was a man who in any company would have seemed striking.[…]Indeed, all his features were in large mold, like the man himself, as though he had come from a day when skin garments made the proper garb of men."
- "You thought, because he could not speak English in the native garb, he could not therefore handle an English cudgel."
- "Yorkshire supplied 500 bows, and 580 garbs of arrows, 360 of which had iron heads pointed with steel."
Etymology
From Middle French garbe ("graceful outline, silhouette"; > Modern French galbe), from Italian garbo (“grace, elegance”), from Germanic (compare Old High German garwi, garawi (“dress, equipment, preparation”), Middle High German gerwe (“outfitting, jewelry, clothing, robe, regalia”), modern German Gärbe, Gerbe and English gear), ultimately from Frankish *garwijan (“to prepare”), from Proto-Germanic *garwijaną (“to prepare”).