gig

Meanings

Noun

• A performing engagement by a musical group; or, generally, any job or role, especially for a musician or performer.
• Any job, especially one that is temporary.
• Fun; frolics; a spree.
• A forked spear for catching fish, frogs, or other small animals.
• A two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage.
• A six-oared sea rowing boat commonly found in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.
• An open boat used to transport the captain of a ship, the captain's gig.
• A demerit received for some infraction of military dress or deportment codes.
• Clipped form of gigabyte.
• Any unit having the SI prefix giga-
• A playful or wanton girl; a giglot.

Verb

• To fish or catch with a gig, or fish spear.
• To engage in musical performances.
• To make fun of; to make a joke at someone's expense, often condescending.
• To impose a demerit for an infraction of a dress or deportment code.

Related

Similar words

• fizgig
• giglot

Origin

• Of uncertain origin. Some theories pose its origin in Middle English gige or Middle English *gygge (found in Middle English whyrlegygge), akin to Old Norse gígja ("fiddle") and German Geige. In Irish, the word gíog is an onomatopoeia meaning "chirp, tweet, squeak". However, none offers established continuity with the present sense. The earliest usage of the word gig in the sense of “any, usual temporary, paid job” found by linguist Geoffrey Nunberg is from a 1952 piece by Jack Kerouac about his gig as a part-time brakeman for the Southern Pacific railroad.
• Clipping of giga-, as in gigabyte, gigaunit, etc.
• From Middle English gigge, from Old French gigues ("a gay, lively girl"), from Old Norse gikkr ("a pert person"), related to Danish gjæk, Swedish gäck. More at geck.