gibbous

English

Etymology

From Middle English, from Latin gibbus (“humped, hunched”), probably cognate with cubō (“bend oneself, lie down”), Italian gobba (“humpback”), Greek κύφος (kýfos, “humpback, bent”), κύβος (kývos, “cube, vertebra”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡɪbəs/
• Rhymes: -ɪbəs

Adjective

gibbous (comparative more gibbous, superlative most gibbous)

1. Characterized by convexity; protuberant.
   • 1886, Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge, chapter 22

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

2. (astronomy) Phase of moon or planet between first quarter and full or between full and last quarter.
3. Humpbacked.
   • 1697, Dryden, Aeneid, book 8

     A pointed flinty rock, all bare and black,

     Grew gibbous from behind the mountain's back;

Derived terms

• gibbous moon

Translations

characterized by convexity; protuberant

• Finnish: kupera (fi)

phase of moon or planet

• Finnish: kupera (fi)
• French: gibbeux (fr) m, gibbeuse (fr) f

• Navajo: nitʼą́ą́ hanádzá
• Scottish Gaelic: crotach

humpbacked — see humpbacked