Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A piece of cloth or plastic secured under the chin and worn, especially by small children, to protect the clothing while eating.
  • noun The part of an apron or pair of overalls worn over the chest.
  • noun Bibbed overalls worn while skiing.
  • noun A piece of cloth or plastic bearing a number, usually worn over the chest or back, identifying a competitor in a race.
  • noun A patch of differently colored feathers or fur on the throat or chest of a bird or mammal.
  • transitive & intransitive verb To drink or indulge in drinking.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A cloth worn by children under the chin to keep the front of the dress clean, especially when eating.
  • noun A similar article worn by adults, especially as forming the upper part of an apron.
  • noun A curved vent or nozle used to alter the direction of the flow of liquids.
  • noun Nautical, same as bibb, the usual spelling in this sense.
  • noun The most common name of the whiting-pout, Gadus luscus, a fish of the family Gudidæ. See blens, 2.
  • To sip; tipple; drink frequently.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A small piece of cloth worn by children over the breast, to protect the clothes.
  • noun (Zoöl.) An arctic fish (Gadus luscus), allied to the cod; -- called also pout and whiting pout.
  • noun A bibcock.
  • intransitive verb To drink; to sip; to tipple.
  • transitive verb obsolete To drink; to tipple.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An item of clothing for babies tied around their neck to protect their clothes from getting dirty when eating.
  • noun The upper part of an apron or overalls.
  • verb archaic To drink heartily; to tipple.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a napkin tied under the chin of a child while eating
  • verb drink moderately but regularly
  • noun top part of an apron; covering the chest

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably from Middle English bibben, to drink heartily, from Latin bibere; see pō(i)- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Originally verb sense “drink heartily”, from Middle English bibben, either from Latin bibō ("I drink"), from Proto-Indo-European *peh₃-, or of imitative origin (onomatopoeia). Noun sense (clothing) presumably either because worn while drinking, or because the clothing itself “drinks up” spills.

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Examples

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  • After he had eaten a slice, he washed it down with a diluted beverage, two parts water to one of wine; but this temperate use of the good creature did not at all save him from the acrimony of my ridicule. So so, good master doctor, said I, you are fairly caught in the fact. You a wine-bibber! you, who have entered the lists like a knight-errant against that unauthenticated fermentation? you, who reached your grand climacteric on the strength of the pure element?

    - Lesage, The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, tr. Smollett, bk 10 ch. 1

    October 8, 2008