gin.
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.
Meaning & usage
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.
Gin rummy.
Drawing the best card or combination of cards.
Johnny Chan held jack-nine, and hit gin when a queen-ten-eight board was dealt out.
Where this word comes from
Abbreviation of geneva, alteration of Dutch genever (“juniper”) from Old French genevre (modern French genièvre), from Vulgar Latin ziniperus, from Latin iūniperus (“juniper”). Hence gin rummy (first attested 1941).
A trick; a device or instrument.
A scheme; contrivance; artifice; a figurative trap or snare.
A snare or trap for game.
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.
A hoisting drum, usually vertical; a whim.
A pile driver.
A windpump.
A cotton gin.
An instrument of torture worked with screws.
Where this word comes from
Partly from Middle English gin, ginne (“cleverness, scheme, talent, device, machine”), from Old French gin, an aphetism of Old French engin (“engine”); and partly from Middle English grin, grine (“snare, trick, stratagem, deceit, temptation, noose, halter, instrument”), from Old English grin, gryn, giren (“snare, gin, noose”).
To remove the seeds from cotton with a cotton gin.
To trap something in a gin.
Where this word comes from
Partly from Middle English gin, ginne (“cleverness, scheme, talent, device, machine”), from Old French gin, an aphetism of Old French engin (“engine”); and partly from Middle English grin, grine (“snare, trick, stratagem, deceit, temptation, noose, halter, instrument”), from Old English grin, gryn, giren (“snare, gin, noose”).
To begin.
Where this word comes from
Inherited from Middle English ginnen (“to begin”), contraction of beginnen.
An Aboriginal woman.
Where this word comes from
Borrowed from Dharug dyin (“woman”), but having acquired a derogatory tone.
If.
Where this word comes from
Cognate to Scots gin (“if”): perhaps from gi(v)en, or a compound in which the first element is from Old English ġif (English if) and the second is cognate to English an (“if”) (compare iffen), or perhaps from again.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.