Abbreviation of geneva, alteration of Dutch genever (“juniper”) from Old French genevre (modern French genièvre), from Vulgar Latin ziniperus, from Latin iūniperus (“juniper”). Hence gin rummy (first attested 1941).
Meanings
(countable, uncountable) A colourless non-aged alcoholic liquor made by distilling fermented grains such as barley, corn, oats or rye with juniper berries; the base for many cocktails.
(uncountable) Gin rummy.
(countable, uncountable) Drawing the best card or combination of cards.
Johnny Chan held jack-nine, and hit gin when a queen-ten-eight board was dealt out.
Partly from Middle English gin, ginne (“cleverness, scheme, talent, device, machine”), from Old French gin, an aphetism of Old French engin (“engine”); and partly from Middle English grin, grine (“snare, trick, stratagem, deceit, temptation, noose, halter, instrument”), from Old English grin, gryn, giren (“snare, gin, noose”).
Meanings
(obsolete) A trick; a device or instrument.
(obsolete) A scheme; contrivance; artifice; a figurative trap or snare.
treason and deceiptfull gin 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
The church dores were sparred,
Fast boltyd and barryd,
Yet wyth a prety gyn
I fortuned to come in, […] c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, →OCLC, page 64, lines 91–94:
A snare or trap for game.
It was the cry of a rabbit caught in a gin. 1895, Thomas Hardy, “IV-ii”, in Jude the Obscure, London: Osgood:
A machine for raising or moving heavy objects, consisting of a tripod formed of poles united at the top, with a windlass, pulleys, ropes, etc.
ru во́рот (machine) · de Fangeisen (snare or trap) · bg лебедка (machine) · bg капан (snare or trap) · ru сило́к (snare or trap) · ota طوزاق (snare or trap) · ota دام (snare or trap) · fi loukku (snare or trap) · ru лову́шка (snare or trap) · ru лебёдка (machine) · bg скрипец (machine) · ka სატყუარა (snare or trap) · fi vintturi (machine) · ka მახე (snare or trap) · ka ხაფანგი (snare or trap) · fi kolmijalkanosturi (machine) · ru капка́н (snare or trap) · ru западня́ (snare or trap) · ota قپان (snare or trap) · fi vinssi (machine) · bg клопка (snare or trap) · de Tellereisen (snare or trap) · fi ansa (snare or trap)
Partly from Middle English gin, ginne (“cleverness, scheme, talent, device, machine”), from Old French gin, an aphetism of Old French engin (“engine”); and partly from Middle English grin, grine (“snare, trick, stratagem, deceit, temptation, noose, halter, instrument”), from Old English grin, gryn, giren (“snare, gin, noose”).
Meanings
(transitive) To remove the seeds from cotton with a cotton gin.
fi loukuttaa (to remove the seeds from cotton) · ga scillig (to remove the seeds from cotton) · it ginnare (to remove the seeds from cotton) · es desmotar (to remove the seeds from cotton)
gin en · VERB · etymology 3
Pronunciation
/ɡɪn/
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English ginnen (“to begin”), contraction of beginnen.
Meanings
(Early, Modern, archaic) To begin.
Gon. All three of them are deſperate : their great guilt / (Like poyſon giuen to worke a great time after) / Now gins to bite the ſpirits :[…] 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii], page 14:
Borrowed from Dharug dyin (“woman”), but having acquired a derogatory tone.
Meanings
(Australia, ethnic, qualifier:now considered offensive, slur) An Aboriginal woman.
How they must have laughed about the strutting of her whose mother was a wanton and aunt a gin! 1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter XXI, in Capricornia, D. Appleton-Century, published 1943, page 353:
On December 28, in the same year [1828], he [John Allen] fought single handed a tribe of native blacks, numbering from thirteen to eighteen, besides "gins" to bring them spears, waddies, etc. 1879 December 31, “Obituary”, in The Hobart Mercury, page 2:
1894, Ivan Dexter, Talmud: A Strange Narrative of Central Australia, published in serial form in Port Adelaide News and Lefevre's Peninsula Advertiser (SA), Chapter XXI, http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks16/1600641.txt
From my position I could see the gins pointing back, and as the men turned they looked for a moment and then made a wild rush for the entrance.
His next shot was discharged amongst the mob, and most unfortunately wounded the gin already mentioned ; who, with a child fastened to her back, slid down the bank, and lay, apparently dying, with her legs in the water. 1869, Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, volume 1, page 273:
Dad said Shoesmith and Thompson had made one error that cost them their lives by letting the gins into the camp, and the blacks speared them all. 1988, Tom Cole, Hell West and Crooked, Angus & Robertson, published 1995, page 179:
But there was this gin there, see, what they called a kitchen girl. 2008, Bill Marsh, Jack Goldsmith, Goldie: Adventures in a Vanishing Australia, unnumbered page:
Cognate to Scots gin (“if”): perhaps from gi(v)en, or a compound in which the first element is from Old English ġif (English if) and the second is cognate to English an (“if”) (compare iffen), or perhaps from again.
[…] gin schoo sets off in a tantrum an' flaah's t'mistress wiv her blutherin […] 1880, Wooers, Banks, I. iv:
"Aw'd never ha slept i' mi bed gin that little un had bin dreawnded, an' me lookin' on loike a stump. Neay; that lass wur Bess, moi wench. We'n no notion wheer th' lad's mother is." Mr. Clough would have pressed the money upon him, but he put it back with a motion of his han. 1876, Mrs. George Linnaeus Banks, The Manchester Man, page 15:
[…]for pronouncing according as one would ſay at London I would eat more cheeſe if I had it, the Northern man ſaith, Ay ſuld eat mare cheeſe gin ay hadet, and the Weſterne man ſaith Chud eat more cheeſe an chad it. 1605, Richard Verstegan, Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, in Antiquities: Concerning the Most Noble, and Renowned English Nation:
Wheeah, Ah thinks thee could, gin ye tried. 1870, John Christopher Atkinson, Lost; or, What came of a slip from 'honour bright'., page 19:
yon felley at Barleigh has wrote farrantly (fairly) to my naunt; gin Robin could bur see ť letter he'd foind no fawt wi' me. 1860, J. P. K. Shuttleworth, Scarsdale; Or, Life on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Border, Thirty Years Ago, page 158:
Gin the plough rests on the bank, / The loom, the nation, dies. 1804, Robert Couper, Poetry, I. 196:
He's get han' and siller, / Gin he fancies me. 1815, Robert Anderson, Ballads in the Cumberland dialect, page 152:
An' gin I'm weel and can keep sober / You may look for it in October. 1809, Thomas Donaldson, Poems, section 76: