gibbous

English

A gibbous moon (sense 2)

Etymology

From Middle English gibbous, from Latin gibbus (“humped, hunched”), probably cognate with cubō (“bend oneself, lie down”), Italian gobba (“humpback”), Ancient Greek κῡφός (kūphós, “humpback, bent”), κύβος (kúbos, “cube, vertebra”), Spanish giboso (“humped”). Also ultimately compare dialectal Norwegian keiv (“slanted, wrong”), German schief (“crooked, slanting”) and Dutch scheef (“crooked, slanting”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡɪbəs/; (uncommon, nonstandard) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒɪbəs/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪbəs

Adjective

gibbous (comparative more gibbous, superlative most gibbous)

1. Curved or bulged outward.
   • 1886 May, Thomas Hardy, “chapter 22”, in The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC:

     In fact, what these gibbous human shapes specially represented was ready money—money insistently ready [...]

2. (astronomy, of a celestial body) Having more than half (but not the whole) of its disc illuminated.

   Coordinate term: crescent

   • 1995, Dava Sobel, Longitude, Herper Perennial, published 2011, →ISBN, page 89:

     The moving moon, full, gibbous, or crescent-shaped, shone at last for the navigators of the eighteenth century like a luminous hand on the clock of heaven.

   • 2021, Ruth Ozeki, The Book of Form and Emptiness, Canongate Books, published 2022, page 252:

     On December 7, 1972, the Apollo 17 astronauts took a photograph of a gibbous Earth at a distance of eighteen thousand miles from its surface.

3. Humpbacked.
   • 1697, Virgil, “The Eighth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:

     A pointed flinty rock, all bare and black,
     Grew gibbous from behind the mountain's back;

Derived terms

• gibbous moon
• waning gibbous

Translations

characterized by convexity; protuberant

• Bulgarian: издут (bg) (izdut), изпъкнал (bg) (izpǎknal)
• Finnish: kupera (fi)
• French: gibbeux (fr) m, gibbeuse (fr) f
• Georgian: ამოზნექილი (amoznekili), ამობურცული (amoburculi), გამობურცული (gamoburculi)
• German: gewölbt (de)
• Greek: αμφίκυρτος (el) (amfíkyrtos)
• Hungarian: dudorodó, kidudorodó (hu), duzzadó (hu), duzzadt (hu), domború (hu)
• Old English: hofored, ġehofored
• Portuguese: giboso
• Russian: выпуклый (ru) (vypuklyj), выступающий (ru) (vystupajuščij)
• Spanish: gibado (es)

phase of moon or planet

• Catalan: gibós (ca)
• Finnish: kupera (fi)
• French: gibbeux (fr) m, gibbeuse (fr) f
• Greek: αμφίκυρτος (el) (amfíkyrtos)
• Hungarian: dagadó (hu), telő (hu)
• Navajo: nitʼą́ą́ hanádzá
• Portuguese: giboso
• Russian: освещённый более, чем на половину (osveščónnyj boleje, čem na polovinu)
• Scottish Gaelic: crotach
• Spanish: giboso
• Swedish: oval (sv)

humpbacked — see humpbacked