Definition of "gin"

gin¹

/d͡ʒɪn/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural gins
1. 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.
2. (uncountable) Gin rummy.
3. (poker) Drawing the best card or combination of cards.

gin²

/d͡ʒɪn/

noun
plural gins
1. (obsolete) A trick; a device or instrument.
2. (obsolete) A scheme; contrivance; artifice; a figurative trap or snare.
  Quotations
  The church dores were sparred,Fast boltyd and barryd,Yet wyth a prety gynI fortuned to come in, […]
  c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, page 64, lines 91–94
  treason and deceiptfull gin
  1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie
3. A snare or trap for game.
4. 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.
5. (mining) A hoisting drum, usually vertical; a whim.
6. A pile driver.
7. A windpump.
8. A cotton gin.
9. An instrument of torture worked with screws.
verb
third-person singular simple present gins, present participle ginning, simple past and past participle ginned
1. (transitive) To remove the seeds from cotton with a cotton gin.
2. (transitive) To trap something in a gin.

gin³

/ɡɪn/

verb
third-person singular simple present gins, present participle ginning, simple past gan, past participle gun
1. (archaic) To begin.
  Quotations
  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, [Act III, scene iii], page 14

gin⁴

/d͡ʒɪn/

noun
plural gins
1. (Australia, now considered offensive) An Aboriginal woman.
  Quotations
  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
  On December 28, in the same year , 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
  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.
  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
  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
  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

gin⁵

/ɡɪn/

conjunction
1. (chiefly Scotland, Northern England, Southern US, Appalachia) If.
  Quotations
  […] 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
  Gin the plough rests on the bank, / The loom, the nation, dies.
  1804, Robert Couper, Poetry, I. 196
  An' gin I'm weel and can keep sober / You may look for it in October.
  1809, Thomas Donaldson, Poems, section 76
  He's get han' and siller, / Gin he fancies me.
  1815, Robert Anderson, Ballads in the Cumberland dialect, page 152
  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
  Wheeah, Ah thinks thee could, gin ye tried.
  1870, John Christopher Atkinson, Lost; or, What came of a slip from 'honour bright'., page 19
  "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
  […] gin schoo sets off in a tantrum an' flaah's t'mistress wiv her blutherin […]
  1880, Wooers, Banks, I. iv

Definition of "gin"

gin1

noun

gin2

noun

Quotations

verb

gin3

verb

Quotations

gin4

noun

Quotations

gin5

conjunction

Quotations

gin¹

gin²

gin³

gin⁴

gin⁵