rib
Pluralribs
Pluralribs
- 1Any of the series of long curved bones, twelve pairs in humans, extending from the spine toward the breastbone.
The surgeon counted each rib before making the incision.
A hard blow to the chest can fracture several ribs at once.
Note
The bone the whole word is built on: Old English ribb, from a Germanic word that also meant "reef" and an older root for "arch, ceiling, cover". In anatomy the ribs join the thoracic vertebrae behind and, in most pairs, meet the sternum in front through costal cartilage, forming the thoracic cage. Thomas Hardy's Two on a Tower (1882) shows the image traveling: bare winter trees become skeletons with the sun shining through their ribs.
- 2A cut of meat that encloses one or more rib bones.
He carved the rib into thick, juicy slices.
These ribs had been marinating overnight in a spicy sauce.
- 3To direct friendly jokes at someone without intending to hurt their feelings.
The players rib each other constantly in the locker room.
She ribbed her brother about his new haircut all evening.
Note
The usual pattern is to rib someone about something, or for it: ribbed about his sloppy appearance, ribbed for his outrageous shirts. It sits comfortably in the passive (he always gets ribbed), and it even reaches political reporting, as in Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman's 2025 account of Trump publicly ribbing Musk. The noun is the same jest as a single remark.
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- 6One of a series of curved frames that rise up and out from a ship's keel and give the hull its skeleton.
The shipwright fitted a new rib against the keel.
Rot had spread through several ribs along the lower hull.
Note
Shipbuilders borrowed the body's plan whole: the keel plays the spine, and the ribs curve up and out from it to set the cross-sectional shape of the hull. They also carry the planking, or on a metal ship the plating, that forms the shell. When a sailor speaks of a vessel's ribs, the subject is this hidden framework, not anything visible from the deck.
- 7Any of the transverse pieces that give an aircraft wing its shape and strength.
Engineers spaced each rib evenly along the wing spar.
Lightweight aluminum ribs reduce the aircraft's overall weight.
Note
Inside a wing, the ribs run across it and give it its airfoil profile, the curved cross-section that produces lift. They pass the aerodynamic loads from the skin into the main spars. Rib and spar are the pair to keep apart: the spar is the beam running the length of the wing, and the ribs are the cross-pieces set along it.
- 8A long, narrow, usually arched member projecting from a structure's surface, especially one separating the webs of a vault.
The cathedral's vault is divided by a slender stone rib.
Gothic builders crossed the ribs to spread the roof's weight.
Note
Architects use the word most for vaulted ceilings. There the ribs are the slender projecting arches that mark the lines between the webs, the curved panels of masonry they frame. In Gothic building they do two jobs at once: they ornament the ceiling, and they channel structural thrust along the groins where the webs meet.
- 9A raised ridge running through knitted material or woven cloth.
A narrow rib ran down each side of the woolen sock.
The corduroy's ribs caught the light as he moved.
Note
Knitters make ribs by alternating columns of knit and purl stitches. The result is a textured surface with noticeable stretch. In woven cloth such as corduroy, the same word names a raised ridge in the weave. Fabric with this texture is usually described with the participle: a ribbed sweater, ribbed socks.
- 10The main vein, or any of the prominent veins, running through a leaf.
A strong central rib runs the length of the banana leaf.
The smaller ribs branch outward toward the leaf's edge.
Similarvein
Note
Botanists use the word for the veins that stand out on a leaf: the central one running its length, and the prominent veins branching from it. Besides carrying water and nutrients, they stiffen the blade, much as a skeleton holds a body. That supporting role is how the bone's name came to fit the leaf.
- 11To shape or strengthen something by fitting it with a rib or ribs.
Builders rib the dome with curved supports to spread the weight.
The boat's hull was ribbed with oak frames for strength.
Similarreinforce, brace, strengthen
- 12On a firearm, a metal strip mounted above the barrel along its length, giving the shooter a plane to sight along.
The gunsmith polished the raised rib on the old shotgun.
Shooters sight down the rib to keep both eyes level with the target.
Note
A gunsmith's and shooter's term for a raised strip fixed along the top of a shotgun or rifle barrel. It gives an unbroken sighting plane from the breech to the front bead. The shooter looks along the rib rather than at it, and it guides the eye to the target.
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- 14To enclose and protect something, as if surrounding it with ribs; to shut it in.
Steep cliffs rib the harbor and protect the boats from open water.
The vault was ribbed with iron bars, shutting the gold safely inside.
Similarenclose, surround, encircle
Note
A figurative sense that pictures something closed in the way ribs close in the chest. Shakespeare uses it in The Merchant of Venice, where lead is judged too gross "to rib her cerecloth in the obscure grave". The idea is to encase a shroud the way a rib cage encases the body. Outside such literary echoes, "enclose" or "encase" is the everyday word.
- 15A single strand of hair.
He found a long red rib clinging to his coat.
She tucked a loose rib behind her ear.
Note
An Irish colloquialism: a rib of hair is one strand, the kind found clinging to a collar or tucked behind an ear. Speakers outside Ireland may not recognize it, and could easily take it for one of the word's other meanings. When writing for a general audience, "strand" or simply "a hair" is the safer choice.
- 16A wife, or a woman.
The farmer and his rib worked the land together for forty years.
'Near to it was the portrait of his rib, Dame Middleton.'
1862, George Borrow, Wild WalesNote
An old joke on Genesis, where Eve is formed from Adam's rib, so a man's wife becomes his rib. George Borrow's Wild Wales (1862) uses it with a straight face for a portrait "of his rib, Dame Middleton". Today it survives only as a literary or humorous archaism. Because it casts a woman as part of a man, it is best kept to plainly playful contexts.
- 17To plow land in a way that leaves strips of undisturbed ground between the furrows.
Old hands still rib the heavy clay land rather than turning every furrow.
He ribbed the hillside plot with a single-furrow plow.
- 18Hound's-tongue (Cynoglossum officinale), a flowering plant of the borage family.
The grazing field was overrun with rib by midsummer.
She crushed a leaf of rib and noticed its strong, mousy smell.
Similarhound's-tongue
Note
This is a different word that happens to share the spelling: it comes from Old English ribbe, the old name of hound's-tongue itself, and is unrelated to the bone. Hound's-tongue is a biennial herb with dull reddish-purple flowers and barbed nutlets. Its leaves were formerly used in folk remedies.
- 19Costmary (Tanacetum balsamita), an aromatic herb of the daisy family.
A few leaves of rib gave the ale a warm, balsam scent.
Grandmother kept dried rib among her books to keep them fresh.
Similarcostmary
Note
The same old plant name as the hound's-tongue rib, here applied to costmary. Costmary is a perennial aromatic herb that was historically grown for flavoring ale and for strewing on floors. It also goes by the names alecost and bible-leaf, which are more likely than rib to turn up in herb books.
- 20Watercress (Nasturtium officinale), a peppery-leaved aquatic plant of the cabbage family.
The clear chalk stream was thick with rib all spring.
He rinsed the rib carefully before adding it to the sandwich.
Similarwatercress, cress
Note
Watercress is one more plant to carry the herbal name shared with hound's-tongue. It is a fast-growing aquatic perennial whose pungent, peppery leaves have long been gathered from clean streams and eaten raw in salads. In this sense rib is purely a plant name, with no trace of the bone or the frame.
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Origins
From Middle English "rib, ribbe," from Old English "ribb," going back through Proto-Germanic "*ribją" (rib, reef) to the Proto-Indo-European root "*h₁rebʰ-" (arch, ceiling, cover). It is related to Dutch "rib," German "Rippe," and Old Norse "rif." The sense of "wife or woman" refers to the Bible story of Eve being created from Adam's rib.
From Middle English "ribbe," from Old English "ribbe," meaning the plant hound's-tongue.