The AI-powered English dictionary
plural squibs
(military) A small firework that is intended to spew sparks rather than explode. quotations
The making and selling of fireworks and squibs […] is punishable.
1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press
A similar device used to ignite an explosive or launch a rocket, etc. examples
(mining) A kind of slow match or safety fuse. examples
(US) Any small firecracker sold to the general public, usually in special clusters designed to explode in series after a single master fuse is lit. examples
(firearms) A malfunction in which the fired projectile does not have enough force behind it to exit the barrel, and thus becomes stuck. examples
(automotive) The heating element used to set off the sodium azide pellets in a vehicle's airbag. examples
(film, theater) In special effects, a small explosive used to replicate a bullet hitting a surface or a gunshot wound on an actor. examples
(dated) A short piece of witty writing; a lampoon. quotations examples
Ye nevvs-paper vvitlings! ye pert ſcribbling folks! / VVho copied his ſquibs, and re-echoed his jokes, […]
1774, page 21
Of the dozen or so surviving articles, squibs, and letters to the editor, the most remarkable appeared in the Whip and Satirist’s February 12, 1842, issue, and disclosed the existence of a cabal of gay men in New York's otherwise wholesome nightscape of brothels and riots.
2005, Mark Caldwell, New York Night, page 133
(dated) A writer of lampoons. quotations examples
The squibs are those who in the common phrase of the world are called libellers, lampooners, and pamphleteers.
November 1, 1709, Richard Steele, The Tatler
(law) In a legal casebook, a short summary of a legal action placed between more extensively quoted cases. examples
(linguistics) A short article, often published in journals, that introduces theoretically problematic empirical data or discusses an overlooked theoretical problem. In contrast to a typical article, a squib need not answer the questions that it poses. quotations examples
In this squib I will prove that the number of possible metrical parsings into feet under these assumptions […]
2008, William J. Idsardi, Combinatorics for Metrical Feet, in Biolinguistics Vol 2, No 2
(archaic except in idioms) An unimportant, paltry, or mean-spirited person. quotations
Its a hard case when men of good deserving / must either driven be perforce to sterving / or asked for their pas by everie squib.
1591, Edmund Spenser, Mother Hubberds Tale ll. 369-371
(graphic design) A sketched concept or visual solution, usually very quick and not too detailed. examples
third-person singular simple present squibs, present participle squibbing, simple past and past participle squibbed
To make a sound like a small explosion. examples
(colloquial, dated, transitive, intransitive) To throw squibs; to utter sarcastic or severe reflections; to contend in petty dispute. examples