different between garb vs gear

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???(?)b/
• Rhymes: -??(?)b

Etymology 1

From Middle French garbe (“graceful outline”) (Modern French galbe), from Italian garbo (“grace, elegance”), perhaps from Germanic (compare Old High German garwi, garawi (“dress, equipment, preparation”) and English gear), ultimately from Frankish *garwijan (“to prepare”), from Proto-Germanic *garwijan? (“to prepare”).

Noun

garb (countable and uncountable, plural garbs)

1. Fashion, style of dressing oneself up. [from late 16^thc.]
2. A type of dress or clothing. [from early 17^thc.]

   • This new-comer was a man who in any company would have seemed striking. […] Indeed, all his features were in large mold, like the man himself, as though he had come from a day when skin garments made the proper garb of men.

3. (figuratively) A guise, external appearance.

Translations

Verb

garb (third-person singular simple present garbs, present participle garbing, simple past and past participle garbed)

1. (transitive) To dress in garb.

Translations

Etymology 2

French gerbe; akin to German Garbe. Doublet of gerbe.

Noun

garb (plural garbs)

1. (heraldry) A wheat sheaf.
2. A measure of arrows in the Middle Ages.
   • 1957, H. R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry, page 118.

     Yorkshire supplied 500 bows, and 580 garbs of arrows, 360 of which had iron heads pointed with steel.

Translations

Anagrams

• ARGB, brag, grab

Polish

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *g?rb?, *g?rba

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?arp/

Noun

garb m inan

1. a hump (rounded fleshy mass)
2. a hump (deformity of the human back)

Declension

Related terms

• garbaty
• garbus
• garbi? si?

Further reading

• garb in Wielki s?ownik j?zyka polskiego, Instytut J?zyka Polskiego PAN
• garb in Polish dictionaries at PWN

English

Etymology

From Middle English gere, a borrowing from Old Norse gervi, from Proto-Germanic *garwijan? (“to prepare”). See also adjective yare, yar from the same root via Old English.

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: gîr, IPA^(key): /???(?)/
• (US) enPR: gîr, IPA^(key): /???/
• Rhymes: -??(r)

Noun

gear (countable and uncountable, plural gears)

1. (uncountable) Equipment or paraphernalia, especially that used for an athletic endeavor.
2. Clothing; garments.
3. (obsolete) Goods; property; household items.

   • 1551, Ralph Robinson (sometimes spelt Raphe Robynson) (translator), Utopia (originally written by Sir Thomas More)

4. (countable) A wheel with grooves (teeth) engraved on the outer circumference, such that two such devices can interlock and convey motion from one to the other; a gear wheel.

   Synonyms: cog, cogwheel, gearwheel

5. (countable, automotive, cycling) A particular combination or choice of interlocking gears, such that a particular gear ratio is achieved.
6. (countable, automotive) A configuration of the transmission of a motor car so as to achieve a particular ratio of engine to axle torque.
7. (aviation) Ellipsis of landing gear.

8. (slang) Recreational drugs, including steroids.
   • 2003, Marianne Hancock, Looking for Oliver (page 90)

9. (uncountable, archaic) Stuff.
   • 1662, Henry More, An Antidote Against Atheism, Book III, A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More, p. 113:

10. (obsolete) Business matters; affairs; concern.
11. (obsolete, Britain, dialect) Anything worthless; nonsense; rubbish.
    • (Can we find and add a quotation of Wright to this entry?)
    • March 29, 1549, Hugh Latimer, the fourth sermon preached before King Edward

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

gear (third-person singular simple present gears, present participle gearing, simple past and past participle geared)

1. (engineering, transitive) To provide with gearing; to fit with gears in order to achieve a desired gear ratio.
2. (engineering, intransitive) To be in, or come into, gear.
3. To dress; to put gear on; to harness.
4. (usually with to or toward(s)) To design or devise (something) so as to be suitable (for a particular type of person or a particular purpose).

   This shop is not really geared towards people of our age.

   They have geared the hotel mainly at tourists.

5. (finance) To borrow money in order to invest it in assets.

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

gear (comparative more gear, superlative most gear)

1. (chiefly Liverpudlian) great or fantastic

Anagrams

• Ager, GRAE, Gera, Rega, ager, areg, gare, rage

Manx

Alternative forms

• geayr, geyre

Etymology

From Old Irish gér.

Verb

gear (verbal noun gearey)

1. to laugh, chuckle

Adjective

gear

1. sharp, keen
2. sour, acid

Further reading

• Gregory Toner, Maire Ní Mhaonaigh, Sharon Arbuthnot, Dagmar Wodtko, Maire-Luise Theuerkauf, editors (2019) , “gér”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

Old English

Alternative forms

• ??r, ??r – Anglian

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *j?r?, from Proto-Indo-European *yeh?r-. Cognate with Old Frisian j?r (West Frisian jier), Old Saxon j?r (Middle Low German jâr), Dutch jaar, Old High German j?r (German Jahr), Old Norse ár (Danish/Norwegian/Swedish år, Icelandic/Faroese ár), Gothic ???????????? (j?r). The Indo-European root is also the source of Ancient Greek ??? (h?ra, “season”), Russian ??? (jara), Czech jaro, Lithuanian jore (“springtime”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /jæ???r/

Noun

??ar n (nominative plural ??ar)

1. year
2. the runic character ? (/j/)

Declension

Derived terms

• ??ardagas
• ??arl??
• ?e?ra (uncertain)

Descendants

• Middle English: yeer, here, yere, ?ere
  • English: year
  • Scots: year

Portuguese

Etymology

From an Old Portuguese *gear (compare geo), from Latin gel?re, present active infinitive of gel?. Doublet of the borrowing gelar. Compare also Galician xear.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?i?a?]

Verb

gear (first-person singular present indicative geio, past participle geado)

1. (impersonal) to frost (weather)

Conjugation

Related terms

West Frisian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /????r/

Adverb

gear

1. together

Further reading

• “gear (III)”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011