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gig

Definitions

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

  • noun An arrangement of barbless hooks that is dragged through a school of fish to hook them in their bodies.
  • noun A pronged spear for fishing or catching frogs.
  • intransitive verb To fish for or catch with a gig.
  • intransitive verb To catch a fish or frog with a gig.
  • noun A light, two-wheeled carriage drawn by one horse.
  • noun A long light ship's boat, usually reserved for use by the ship's captain.
  • noun A fast light rowboat.
  • noun An object that whirls.
  • noun Games A three-digit selection in a numbers game.
  • intransitive verb To ride in a gig.
  • noun A gigabyte.
  • noun A job, especially a booking for musicians.
  • intransitive verb To work as a musician.
  • noun A demerit given in the military.
  • transitive verb To give a military demerit to.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To move up and down or spin round; wriggle.
  • To fasten the leather strap to the shield.
  • In machinery, to use a gig or gigging-machine. See gig, n., 3 .
  • To move lightly or rapidly; impart a free, easy motion to.
  • noun A fiddle.
  • noun A whirling or rustling sound, as that made by the blowing of wind through the branches of trees.
  • noun Something that is whirled or moves or acts with rapidity and ease. Specifically — A top; a whirligig.
  • noun A light carriage with one pair of wheels and drawn by one horse; a one-horse chaise.
  • noun Nautical, a long narrow rowing-boat, very lightly built, adapted for racing; also, a ship's boat suited for fast rowing, and generally furnished with sails: in the United States navy, a single-banked boat, usually pulling six oars, devoted to the use of the commanding officer.
  • noun A machine consisting of rotatory cylinders covered with wire teeth for teazeling woolen cloth. See gigging-machine.
  • noun Sport; fun; lively time.
  • To spear with a gig, as a fish.
  • To fish with a gig or fishgig.
  • noun A wanton, silly girl; a flighty person. See giglet.
  • To engender.
  • noun In machine-shop practice, a portable appliance for holding a piece of metal upon a machine and presenting it, successively, in two or more positions, to the cutting-tools: also used to assist in guiding the tools to the work. It is made in many forms and is used upon a great variety of machines. It is commonly employed in making standard parts of machines, tools, or motors.
  • noun In policy, a special combination of three numbers. See policy, 3.
  • noun A fishing-spear; a fishgig.
  • noun A device for taking fish, a kind of pulldevil designed to be dragged through the water.

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

  • noun obsolete A fiddle.
  • transitive verb obsolete To engender.
  • noun A kind of spear or harpoon. See fishgig.
  • transitive verb To fish with a gig.
  • noun A playful or wanton girl; a giglot.
  • noun A job for a specified, usually short period of time; -- used especially for the temporary engagements of an entertainer, such as a jazz musician or a rock group.
  • noun A top or whirligig; any little thing that is whirled round in play.
  • noun A light carriage, with one pair of wheels, drawn by one horse; a kind of chaise.
  • noun (Naut.) A long, light rowboat, generally clinkerbuilt, and designed to be fast; a boat appropriated to the use of the commanding officer.
  • noun (Mach.) A rotatory cylinder, covered with wire teeth or teasels, for teaseling woolen cloth.
  • noun See Gig, 4.

Etymologies

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

[Short for fishgig.]

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

[Perhaps from obsolete gig, spinning top, from Middle English gyg-, possibly of Scandinavian origin.]

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

[Origin unknown.]

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

[Origin unknown.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

A shortening of gigabyte.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Akin to Old Norse gigia ("fiddle") and German Geige ("violin").

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Examples

  • Briefly, Sperry, whose main gig is with the Richard Scaife funded WorldNet Daily, got his piece into the Rupert Murdoch operated Post, and from thence it landed on Rush Limbaugh's desk and in the pages of another Scaife project, FrontPage.

    Tet II - Another ring of Hell 2004

  • Briefly, Sperry, whose main gig is with the Richard Scaife funded WorldNet Daily, got his piece into the Rupert Murdoch operated Post, and from thence it landed on Rush Limbaugh's desk and in the pages of another Scaife project, FrontPage.

    Archive 2004-03-01 2004

  • Briefly, Sperry, whose main gig is with the Richard Scaife funded WorldNet Daily, got his piece into the Rupert Murdoch operated Post, and from thence it landed on Rush Limbaugh's desk and in the pages of another Scaife project, FrontPage.

    Why We Fight 2004

  • Briefly, Sperry, whose main gig is with the Richard Scaife funded WorldNet Daily, got his piece into the Rupert Murdoch operated Post, and from thence it landed on Rush Limbaugh's desk and in the pages of another Scaife project, FrontPage.

    Speaking of lists... 2004

  • They have been floating the one term gig for a long time now.

    Top McCain Adviser: Palin Will Learn National Security From McCain Before He Keels Over 2009

  • He's been floating the one term gig since he got the nomination.

    Election Central Sunday Roundup 2009

  • And being able to turn down a gig is a place of strength when bargaining.

    Breakfast in Bed desayunoencama 2006

  • A "gig" is somewhere you go to listen to loud music, strip to the waist and throw yourself into the mosh pit with gay abandon.

    Archive 2004-09-01 Hal Duncan 2004

  • A "gig" is somewhere you go to listen to loud music, strip to the waist and throw yourself into the mosh pit with gay abandon.

    "Say 'Jeez'!" Hal Duncan 2004

  • In my work as a doula, my gig is that women should have safe, supported birth.

    A Good Birth | Her Bad Mother 2010

  • The term sharing economy has many synonyms and near-synonyms, like gig economy, peer economy, collaborative economy, grassroots economy, and mesh economy.

    The Sharing Economy Was Dead on Arrival | JSTOR Daily Catherine Halley 2019

Comments

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  • chained_bear commented on the word gig

    "A Gig, is a long narrow boat, used for expedition, generally rowed with six or eight oars, and is mostly the private property of the captain, or commander."

    —Falconer's New Universal Dictionary of the Marine (1816), 47

    A quite different usage on barouche.

    October 11, 2008

  • MaryW commented on the word gig

    Growing numbers of Americans no longer hold a regular “job” with a long-term connection to a particular business. Instead, they work “gigs” where they are employed on a particular task or for a defined time, with little more connection to their employer than a consumer has with a particular brand of chips. Borrowed from the music industry, the word “gig” has been applied to all sorts of flexible employment (otherwise referred to as “contingent labor,” “temp labor,” or the “precariat”). Some have praised the rise of the gig economy for freeing workers from the grip of employers’ “internal labor markets,” where career advancement is tied to a particular business instead of competitive bidding between employers. Rather than being driven by worker preferences, however, the rise of the gig economy comes from employers’ drive to lower costs, especially during business downturns. Gig workers experience greater insecurity than workers in traditional jobs and suffer from lack of access to established systems of social insurance.
    Gerald Friedman, The Rise of the Gig Economy, Dollars & Sense, March/April 2014

    April 6, 2016