gin
Pluralgins
Pluralgins
- 1A colorless, unaged liquor distilled from fermented grains such as barley, corn, or rye and flavored with juniper berries; it serves as the base for many cocktails.
The distillery flavors its gin with juniper picked from the surrounding hills.
A classic martini is made with gin and a splash of dry vermouth.
UsageOrder a gin and tonic, or two gins for two glasses; gin alone means the drink in general.
- 2A machine that separates cotton fibers from their seeds; short for cotton gin.
Growers hauled wagonloads of cotton to the gin after the harvest.
A single gin could clean as much cotton in a day as dozens of workers could by hand.
- 3The card game gin rummy, a two-player form of rummy in which players collect sets and runs of cards.
They played gin every evening on the long train ride west.
She kept score while her brothers argued over a hand of gin.
UsageYou play gin or deal a hand of gin, with no article.
Note
A card-table clipping of gin rummy, a name that itself borrows the juniper spirit and caught on across the US in the early 1940s.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- The name gin rummy incorporates gin, the name of the juniper spirit. en.wiktionary.org
- Gin rummy became popular across the United States in the early 1940s. en.wikipedia.org
- 4To remove the seeds from harvested cotton using a cotton gin.
Local mills gin thousands of bales of cotton every season.
The plant ginned the entire harvest in under two weeks.
UsageDoubles the n: ginned, ginning; the object is the cotton, as in gin the cotton.
Less common meanings
- 5In a card game, the act of drawing the best possible card or combination of cards.
He caught gin on the final card when the ace completed his straight.
She hit gin on the river when the seven she needed filled her straight.
UsageUsually hit gin or catch gin, with no article.
Note
Poker players borrow the word for catching exactly the card they needed. Johnny Chan, holding jack-nine, 'hit gin' when a queen-ten-eight board filled his straight. The name comes over from the rummy game, where it marks a perfect hand.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Johnny Chan held jack-nine and made a straight on a queen-ten-eight flop. wsop.com
- In gin rummy, gin denotes a completed hand with no unmatched cards. en.wikipedia.org
- 6A snare or trap set to catch game animals such as rabbits or birds.
The poacher set a gin along the hedge where the rabbits ran.
By morning a stoat had been caught fast in the gin.
UsageAnimals are usually caught in a gin.
Note
Unlike the figurative trap, this literal one stayed in use. Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure (1895) hears 'the cry of a rabbit caught in a gin.'
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Thomas Hardy wrote Jude the Obscure. gutenberg.org
- Jude the Obscure was first published in book form in 1895. new.ox.ac.uk
- The quoted wording occurs in the novel; it is narration describing what Jude hears. gutenberg.org
- 7A machine for hoisting heavy loads, such as a tripod of poles fitted with pulleys and a windlass, or a drum around which a rope winds.
The crew rigged a gin over the well shaft to haul up the broken pump.
Quarry workers swung the dressed stone aside with a gin and a team of mules.
- 8If; used to introduce a condition.
Wheeah, Ah thinks thee could, gin ye tried.
1870, John Christopher Atkinson, LostHe's get han' and siller, / Gin he fancies me.
1815, Robert Anderson, Ballads in the Cumberland dialectSimilarif
Note
A conditional of regional speech: it belongs to Scotland and Northern England, and to the Southern US and Appalachia. Richard Verstegan's Restitution of Decayed Intelligence (1605) already presents it as the northern way of saying if, with "gin ay hadet" set against London's "yf I had it."
- 9An Aboriginal woman (now considered offensive in Australian English).
Early colonial writers often used the offensive word "gins" for Aboriginal women.
Historians quoting old station records note that "gin" was a slur for an Aboriginal woman.
UsageSay Aboriginal woman instead. Use the offensive word only when necessary to quote or discuss it.
Note
A colonial borrowing of Dharug dyin, 'woman', that turned derogatory in settler use. It appears in Thomas Livingstone Mitchell's expedition writing (1838), The Hobart Mercury (1879) and Xavier Herbert's Capricornia (1938).
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 6 facts
- Gin was borrowed from Dharug dyin, meaning woman, and acquired a derogatory meaning. en.wiktionary.org
- The word appears in Thomas Livingstone Mitchell's expedition writing. archive.org
- Mitchell's Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia was first published in 1838. sydney.edu.au
- The word appears in the Hobart Mercury in 1879. en.wikipedia.org
- Xavier Herbert wrote Capricornia, first published in 1938. en.wikipedia.org
- The word appears in Capricornia. archive.org
- 10SayGIN/ɡɪn/To begin; to start.
Note
A separate word that merely shares the spelling. It is a contraction of Middle English beginnen, unrelated to traps or engines. It usually stands before a to-infinitive, as in Shakespeare's Tempest: guilt 'now gins to bite the spirits.' It is archaic and belongs to Early Modern verse. Today it appears only in deliberate imitation of that style.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts
- The verb meaning begin derives from a contraction of Middle English beginnen. en.wiktionary.org
- This verb has a separate etymology from gin meaning a trap or machine. en.wiktionary.org
- Shakespeare's The Tempest contains the quoted words about guilt; Gonzalo speaks them in Act III, scene III. en.wikisource.org
- 11A trick, scheme, or artifice; a figurative trap.
treason and deceiptfull gin
1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie QueeneNote
The trap made of words or plots rather than wire. Skelton slips into a barred church 'wyth a prety gyn', a clever dodge. Spenser's Faerie Queene (1590) pairs it with treason: 'treason and deceiptfull gin'. Its literal counterpart, the snare for game, is the one that lasted.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- Gin can mean a figurative trap or scheme. en.wiktionary.org
- Skelton describes entering a barred church using 'wyth a prety gyn'. otago.ac.nz
- Edmund Spenser wrote The Faerie Queene, whose first three books were first published in 1590. en.wikisource.org
- The Faerie Queene contains the exact phrase 'treason and deceiptfull gin'. en.wikisource.org
- Gin also denotes a literal snare for game. en.wiktionary.org
- 12To trap something, such as an animal, in a gin or snare.
- 13A machine that drives piles, the heavy posts that support structures, into the ground; a pile driver.
- 14A windpump; a machine that uses wind power to raise water.
- 15An instrument of torture operated by turning screws.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of gin apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origins
Gin is short for geneva, an altered form of Dutch genever ("juniper"), which goes back through Old French genevre and Vulgar Latin ziniperus to Latin iūniperus ("juniper"). From gin came gin rummy, first recorded in 1941.
The word has two sources in Middle English. One is gin or ginne ("cleverness, device, machine"), a shortened form of Old French engin ("engine"). The other is grin or grine ("snare, trick, noose"), which came from Old English grin, gryn or giren ("snare, noose").
Inherited from Middle English "ginnen" (to begin), a contraction of "beginnen."
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Gin is inherited from Middle English ginnen, meaning to begin. en.wiktionary.org
- Middle English ginnen is a contraction of beginnen. en.wiktionary.org
Borrowed from Dharug "dyin" (woman), but having acquired a derogatory tone.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Gin was borrowed from Dharug dyin, meaning "woman". en.wiktionary.org
- The borrowed word acquired a derogatory tone. en.wikipedia.org
Scots gin ("if") is the same word. It may have started as gi(v)en or as again. It may also be a compound, with a first part that grew out of Old English ġif (the source of English if) and a second part cognate with English an ("if").