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Nib   Listen
noun
Nib  n.  
1.
A small and pointed thing or part; a point; a prong. "The little nib or fructifying principle."
2.
(Zool.) The bill or beak of a bird; the neb.
3.
The points of a pen; also, the pointed part of a pen; a short pen adapted for insertion in a holder.
4.
One of the handles which project from a scythe snath; also, (Prov. Eng.), The shaft of a wagon.
5.
pl. See his nibs, below.
his nibs Someone who gives a command or makes a demand, often one who acts in a self-important manner, sometimes one with authority; used mockingly as a jocose term, as if a title of honor, but not usually in the presence of the person referred to, and usually indicating resentment or contempt. (Colloq.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Nib" Quotes from Famous Books



... "A Paper for Doubters," which, with her assistance, he edited, published, compiled, wrote, and (without her help) paid for and read. A pen, flung down forcibly, quivered erect with its one surviving nib in the blotting pad. Mr. ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells

... onward through a low, swampy tract overgrown with black alder and at length reached the "colt pasture," upon a cleared hill. Here a handsome black colt, along with a sorrel and a white one, was feeding, and at once came racing to meet me, in the hope of a nib of provender, or salt. Continuing my voyage of discovery, I came to a tract of woodland beyond the pasture through which a cart road led to a clearing where there was a small old house, deserted, and ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... man," and the nib of one's pen Makes the same mark at twenty, and threescore and ten; It is so in all matters, if truth may be told; Let one look at the cast he can ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... more wholesome pleasures. Now," I continued, "if only Queen TITA and the rest will help us, I think we can do something to satisfy this clamour." For all answer, my pen-holder nestled lovingly in my hand. I placed my patent sunset-nib in its mouth, waved it twice, dipped ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 30, 1892 • Various

... pen in unaccustomed fingers and made a crisscross scrawl, adorned with thirteen blots. The pen nib broke under the strain, and he handed it back with an ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy

... well-groomed gentleman, smooth-shaven and with hair that was none too gray, more than once caught himself standing before Lloyd's picture that stood on the mantelpiece in Hattie's room, looking at it vaguely as he clipped the nib ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... but little progress. The clock of Saint Mary's told the passing hours, and at twelve Julian found himself with nothing written except a few half-finished and incoherent sentences which he was ashamed to show up. Dashing the nib of his pen on the desk, he split it to pieces; and then, tearing up his papers, was hurrying out, when the voice of ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... fitness in this appointment; for is not his Lordship son-in-law to old Goldsmid, whilom editor of the Anti-Galliean, and for many years an honoured and withal notorious resident of Paris! Of course BEN D'ISRAELI, his Lordship's friend, will get a slice of secretaryship—may be allowed to nib a state quill, if he must not use one. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... not a very gay beginning for a young officer's active service, but Gordon, like his mother, had a way of making the best of things. Even when, as he wrote, the ink was frozen, and he broke the nib of his pen as he dipped it, "There are really no hardships for the officers," he wrote home; "the men are ...
— The Story of General Gordon • Jeanie Lang

... sometimes boasting when he had not made a single blot; or confessing to me, in perfect confidence, how much the thinness of Susan's upstrokes, or the thickness of her downstrokes, was owing to the clearness of his slit or the fineness of his nib. ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown

... the court, is one of the officers carrying a piece of parchment, upon which is written in contracted law Latin, "Preceptum fuit Vicecomiti per breve hujus Scaccarii." To the right of the last-named figure is another officer of the court, who is in the act of examining his pen by placing its nib at a short distance from his eyes; and this person carries in his left hand a piece of parchment upon which are written, in like character, the words "Memorandum quod x die Maii, &c." To the right of this officer, who is probably the Chief Remembrancer, is placed another officer, wearing a ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various

... quill? A most unlikely habit!" To that I answer you are right. Less assertion, please, and more humility. I will tell you frankly with what I am writing. I am writing with a Waterman's Ideal Fountain Pen. The nib is of pure gold, as was the throne of Charlemagne, in the "Song of Roland." That throne (I need hardly tell you) was borne into Spain across the cold and awful passes of the Pyrenees by no less than a hundred ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc

... ink and a supply of hotel note paper, which Micky looked at with great satisfaction, before he took up a pen, carefully examined the nib, squared his elbows ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres

... reader to the top of his bent;—else could I omit that strange creature Woollett, who existed in trying the question, and bought litigations?—and still stranger, inimitable, solemn Hepworth, from whose gravity Newton might have deduced the law of gravitation. How profoundly would he nib a pen—with what deliberation would he wet ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... certain persistent twists in the formation of his capitals, and certain curious peculiarities in the relative length of his t's, his l's, his b's, and his h's, we could see for ourselves he was right; both were the work of one hand, writing in the one case with a sharp-pointed nib, very small, and in the other with a quill, ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen

... Harshaw and me, who are looking over her shoulder, "that would be the size of him in my sketch." She points to the marginal pencil-mark, which is not longer than the nib of a stub-pen. "I can't make a little black dot like that ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... days of his youth the old man had been a "Black Nib." The Black Nibs were the persons who agitated against the French war; and the public feeling against them ran strong and deep. In Thrums the local Black Nibs were burned in effigy, and whenever they put their heads out of doors they risked being stoned. Even where the authorities were unprejudiced ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie

... the great name Elizabeth. This is in medieval rolls represented by its cognate Isabel, of which the shortened form was Bell (Chapter I), or Ib, the latter giving Ibbot, Ibbotson, and the rimed forms Tib-, Nib-, Bib-, Lib-. Here also belong Ebbs and Epps rather than to ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... can't write with a Waverley!" protested Raymonde in much indignation. "It'll spoil my whole exam. I call that tyranny! Look here! I'm not going to be done! I shall send for a fountain pen with a broad nib. I saw one ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil

... ascending and descending the broad flights of steps. How intensely eager do these dusky believers in the efficacy of "Mother Ganga" as a purifier of sin dip themselves beneath the yellow water, rinse out their mouths, scrape their tongues, nib, duck, splash, and disport; they fairly revel in the sacred water; happy, thrice happy they look, as well indeed they might, for now are they certain of future happiness. What the "fountain filled with blood" is to the Christian, so is the precious water of dear Ganga to the sinful Hindoo: ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... "We," once a week; every vagabond that an honest man's gorge must rise at; every live emetic in that noxious drug-shop the press, can have his fling at such men and call them knaves and fools and thieves, I grow so vicious that, with bearing hard upon my pen, I break the nib down, and, with keeping my teeth set, make my ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens

... unfriendly definition of an aphorism as a form of speech, that wraps up something quite plain in words that turn it into something very obscure. As old Fuller says, the writers have a hair hanging to the nib of their pen. Their shortness does not prevent them from being tiresome. They recall the French wit to whom a friend showed a distich: "Excellent," he said; "but isn't ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... arrive,—some with smallish fruit to sell, some with smaller news to give. Nobody knew whether Washington was taken. Nobody knew whether Jeff. Davis was now spitting in the Presidential spittoon, and scribbling his distiches with the nib of the Presidential goose-quill. We were absolutely in doubt whether a seemingly inoffensive knot of rustics, on a mound without the inclosure, might not, at tap of drum, unmask a battery of giant columbiads, and belch blazes at us, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... ruffler, stroking his chin—"one may see that he's no half swell by the care with which he cultivates the best gifts of nature, his whiskers. He's a rank nib."[30] ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... appears the same throughout the succeeding six, except in the rare places (e.g. vi. 92-93), where the lazy copyist did not care to change a worn-out pen, and continued to write with a double nib. On the other hand, it is the character of a village-schoolmaster whose literary culture is at its lowest. Hardly a sheet appears without some blunder which only in rare places is erased or corrected, and a few lacunae ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... that Father Oliver said: 'We have at last arrived at the castle of learning in which the great Mr. Poole sits sharpening the pen which is to slay Christianity. But Christianity will escape Mr. Poole's pen. It, has outlived many such attacks in the past. We shall see, however, what kind of nib he uses, fine or blunt?' The journalist followed the butler down the long library overlooking green sward to a quiet nook, if he might venture to speak of Mr. Walter Poole's study as a quiet nook. It seemed ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... carefully cleaned the ink from the pen, wiping it dry with his handkerchief, then thrust it into the half empty glass of milk. The fluid clung to the steel nib thinly; he went on writing with it, between the ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle

... NEB, or NIB. The bill of a bird, and the slit of a pen. Figuratively, the face and mouth of a woman; as, She holds up her neb: she holds up her ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... eager scrawl; nib flying. Had her George not been so very ordinary a young man he must have perceived the difference between that first portion so neatly penned—parti-coloured words showing where the ink had dried while the poor little ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... the end of a cul de sac. There was a window, and a table and a chair in the window, and upon the table stood a rusty inkstand, an ashtray, an old copy of a French newspaper, and a pen with a broken nib. Rachel sat down, as if to study the French newspaper, but a tear fell on the blurred French print, raising a soft blot. She lifted her head sharply, exclaiming aloud, "It's intolerable!" Looking out of the window with eyes that would have seen nothing even had they not been dazed by ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... possibility of mistaking writing produced by a stylograph for that of an ordinary steel nib. The strokes are absolutely uniform in thickness. No nib-formed writing can be so, for it is impossible for a writer, however careful, to avoid putting pressure on his pen at some point; and the opening of the nib, however slight, must produce ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn

... she added, pressing the nib of her pen on her finger-nail, "They say he doesn't marry just because he ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... had a large number under his tuition, but also that he often competed on an equality with the master. One of the lads who worked there made a pen-drawing of some women, clothed, from a design of Ghirlandajo. Michelangelo took up the paper, and with a broader nib corrected the outline of a female figure, so as to bring it into perfect truth to life. Wonderful it was to see the difference of the two styles, and to note the judgment and ability of a mere boy, so spirited ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... stick a nib on the end of your nose and write with it?" he inquired, as I was poring over an account-book in front of me, trying to make out the rather minute ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... Turold did not put down his pen voluntarily," he said. "He stopped involuntarily, in the midst of a word. That suggests great surprise or sudden shock. The letter 'e' in the word 'clear' terminates in a sprawling dash and a jab from the nib which has almost pierced the paper. Could the unexpected appearance of his daughter have startled him in that fashion? It rather suggests that somebody sprang on him unawares, surprising him so much that he almost stuck the ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... whining hum in the air and the nib of the big tube glowed a soft, velvety green. Jim gazed at the scene with ...
— Spawn of the Comet • Harold Thompson Rich

... said the lawyer, taking some paper from his desk, and carefully examining the nib of a quill pen, "Let me see, I think you said ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... name here," he said, pointing with his finger; and the Major raised himself a little, and brought the pen quaveringly down towards the paper. With a sort of fascination I watched the finely-pointed steel nib; it trembled for an instant or two, then the pen dropped from the convulsed fingers, and with a cry of intolerable anguish the ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall

... Ailesbury that though she has been so very good to me, I address my letters to you rather than to her, because my pen is not always-upon its guard, but is apt to say whatever comes into its nib; and then, if she peeps over your shoulder, I am cens'e not to know it. Lady Harriet's wishes have done me great good: nothing but a father's gout could be obdurate enough to resist them. My Mrs. Damer says nothing to me; but ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... serried columns of black letter, writing and rewriting till he could shape the massive character with firm true hand. He cut his quills with the patience of a monk in the scriptorium, shaving and altering the nib, lightening and increasing the pressure and flexibility of the points, till the pen satisfied him, and gave a stroke both broad and even. Then he made experiments in inks, searching for some medium that would rival the glossy black letter of the old manuscripts; ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... writing table, took from a drawer a bundle of foolscap paper, fitted a new nib to his pen and filled his ink bottle. He ...
— Lady Bountiful - 1922 • George A. Birmingham

... Caleb, giving his chair another hitch, dipping his pen afresh into the inkstand, and holding it suspended over the paper, with a threatening drop slowly collecting on the nib. "Now we'll get under weigh just as soon as you ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens



Words linked to "Nib" :   pen, cere, pen nib, bird, bill, mouth, neb, beak



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