ribbed

1. 1
   adjective

   Marked by a series of raised ridges or parallel bands running across the surface.

   The ribbed vaulting of the cathedral drew every visitor's gaze upward.

   She chose a ribbed cotton fabric for its stretch and its texture.

   Similarridged, corrugated, grooved, furrowed

   Oppositesmooth, flat

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of rib.

   The crew ribbed the new recruit until he finally laughed along.

   She had ribbed him about his cooking for years before he learned to like it.

   Note

   The b doubles, as it does in short verbs ending in a single vowel and consonant: rib, ribbed. Which rib is meant depends on the object. Ribbed the recruit is good-natured teasing. Ribbed the hull means fitted with ribs, and there the participle blurs into the adjective "having ribs", since a ribbed hull is both. In farming, ribbed land has strips of undisturbed ground left between its furrows.

3. 3
   adjective

   Of a coal seam, layered with thin bands of slate running through it.

   The surveyor marked the ribbed seam, noting the slate bands that lowered its value.

   Ribbed coal fetched a poorer price because buyers had to discard the slate layers.

   Similarbanded

   Note

   The picture is the one behind the everyday "having ribs" sense: bands running across a surface, here thin partings of slate threaded through the coal. It is a mining term, and it describes the seam itself, as in a ribbed seam or ribbed coal. The slate must be separated out before the coal can be sold, so calling a seam ribbed is a judgment on its quality as well as its look.

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