dibble
A pointed implement used to make holes in the ground in which to set out plants or to plant seeds.
Noun UK, countable
- A police officer, especially one serving with Greater Manchester Police.
- Remember this story about police hunting a metal detector enthusiast suspected of digging 20 holes in a school playing field in Cornwall? It’s taken a rather unusual twist. Pop superstar Robbie Williams appears to have...
- Preceded by the: the police.
- Watch out, lads! Here comes the dibble!
- In Moss Side they called the police Dibble, after Officer Dibble in the cartoon Top Cat, so the name had sprung from that. - 2002, Colin Ward, 'Chubby' Chris Henderson, “Revelling in It”, in Who Wants It?, Edinburgh:...
- Bein' in the dibble [police] is no cakewalk when you're black. / If you don't get fitted, then you'll prob'ly get the sack. - 2008, Theodore Dalrymple [pseudonym; Anthony Malcolm Daniels], “How Not to Do It”, in Not...
Origin
From the character of Officer Charlie Dibble, a New York Police Department officer, in the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series Top Cat (first broadcast in the US in 1961, and in the UK in 1962 under the title Boss Cat).
Forms
Synonyms
Related
Noun Entry 2
- A pointed implement used to make holes in the ground in which to set out plants or to plant seeds.
- Pol[ixenes] Then make you[r] Garden rich in Gilly'vors, / And do not call them baſtards. / Per[dita] Ile not put / The Dible in earth, to ſet one ſlip of them: […] - c.''' 1610–1611, William Shakespeare, “The Winters...
- Earth'd up, here lies an imp o' hell, / Planted by Satan's dibble— / Poor silly wretch, he's damned himsel', / To save the Lord the trouble. - 1794, Robert Burns, Allan Cunningham, “LX. On a Suicide.”, in The Works of...
- In sowing time ne'er would I dibble take, / Or drop a seed, till thou wast wide awake; […] - 1818, John Keats, Endymion: A Poetic Romance, London: Printed for Taylor and Hessey, 93, Fleet Street, →OCLC, book III, page...
Origin
Possibly dib (“to dab lightly”) + -le (frequentative suffix indicating repetition or continuousness); however, the word dibble is attested earlier than dib.
Forms
Verb
- To make holes or plant seeds using, or as if using, a dibble.
- And as in winter, when the frost breaks up, / At winter's end, before the spring begins, / And a warm west wind blows, and thaw sets in— / After an hour a dripping sound is heard / In all the forests, and the...
- It was Digory who had the bright idea of eating four each and planting the ninth; for, as he said, "if the bar off the lamp-post turned into a little light-tree, why shouldn’t this turn into a toffee-tree?" So they...
Synonyms: dib
- To use a dibble; to make holes in the soil.
- There is another method of ſowing wheat in rows uſed in ſome counties, which is termed dibbling in the language of agricultors, and consiſts in making perpendicular holes one inch and half or two inches deep, as is...
- I would as soon be gored by my ain bull that gangs on Dalmakittenleys, as have ill luck, and sorrow, and mischance, drilled and dibbled into my frail body by the spiteful een of an auld hag. - 1826, Allan Cunningham,...
Synonyms: dib
- To dib or dip frequently, as in angling.
- And neere to them ye see the lesser dibling Teale - 1622, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, song 25 p. 106:
- Natural fly-fishing, which comes under the heads of dibbling, daping and dabbing, is a method with which the largest fish are taken, and requires a deal of nicety and circumspection. The general rule in this way of...