jibe

noun

1. A facetious or insulting remark; a jeer, a taunt.

   “He flung subtle jibes at her until she couldn’t bear to work with him any longer.”

   “Alas poore Yoricke, […] where be your gibes now? your gamboles? your ſongs? your flaſhes of merriment, that were wont to ſet the table on a roare, not one now to mocke your owne grinning, quite chopfalne.”

   “Come, come, we / All are Friends, nor have we Time for Jibe, / Or Anger now, but 'gainſt our common Foes, / The French and Scot; there let your Pray'rs, and Jeſts, / And Blows, be levell’d.”

   “She ran and ran / As if she feared some goblin man / Dogged her with gibe or curse / Or something worse: […]”

   “He bent to all the gibes and prejudices, to all hatred and discrimination, with that rare courtesy which is the armor of pure souls.”

2. (US, alt-of, alternative)Alternative spelling of gybe.

verb

1. (transitive)To reproach with contemptuous words; to deride, to mock, to taunt.

   “[Y]ou / Did pocket vp my Letters: and with taunts / Did gibe my Miſive out of audience.”

   “We could hardly speak before for fear of our Taskmasters; but we dare now Nose those Villains that used to gibe us.”

   “How I want thee, hum'rous Hogarth! / Thou, I hear, a pleaſant Rogue art; / […] / Draw the Beaſts as I deſcribe them, / From their Features, while I gibe them.”

2. (transitive)To say in a mocking or taunting manner.

   “Scarlett felt her heart begin its mad racing again and she clutched her hand against it unconsciously, as if she would squeeze it into submission. "Eavesdroppers often hear highly instructive things," jibed a memory.”

3. (intransitive)To make a mocking remark or remarks; to jeer.

   “Why thats the way to choake a gibing ſpirrit, / Whoſe influence is begot of that looſe grace, / Which ſhallow laughing hearers giue to fooles, […]”

   “This ſet the old Gentlevvoman a Laughing at me, as you may be ſure it vvould: VVell, Madam, Forſooth, ſays ſhe, Gibing at me, you vvould be a Gentlevvoman, and hovv vvill you come to be a Gentlevvoman? VVhat vvill you do it by your Fingers Ends?”

   “Thus with talents well endu'd / To be ſcurrilous and rude; / When you pertly raiſe your ſnout, / Fleer and gibe, and laugh and flout; […]”

   “But now her mother was speaking again: 'And this – read this and tell me if you wrote it, or if that man's lying.' And Stephen must read her own misery jibing at her from those pages in Ralph Crossby's stiff and clerical handwriting.”

   “"What's the matter with you?" the woman jibed. She called after him as he walked away: "Nuts, that's what you are!"”

4. (Canada, US, informal, intransitive)To accord or agree.

   “That explanation doesn’t jibe with the facts.”

   “[T]here is something wrong with your figures. They do not jibe with experience. They do not jibe with prices. They do not jibe with what we know.”

   “This did not jibe with the objectivist view that metaphor is of only peripheral interest in an account of meaning and truth and that it plays at best a marginal role in understanding.”

5. (US, alt-of, alternative)Alternative spelling of gybe.