Skip to main content
PlainSpell

crib

/kɹɪb/noun, verb

crib is spelled C-R-I-B: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 3.0 times per million words in written English, the 15,368th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, crib means “A baby’s bed with high, often slatted, often moveable sides, suitable for a child who has outgrown a cradle or bassinet” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of crib is cribs.

How many letters and syllables are in crib?

Letters4: C-R-I-B
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing3.0 times per million words; the 15,368th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How common is crib?

Crib appears 3.0 times per million words in written English, the 15,368th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce crib?

  • /kɹɪb/

Crib has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-crib.ogg, EN-AU_ck1_crib.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of crib

  • cribs plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • cribbing participle, present
  • cribbed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does crib mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    USA baby’s bed with high, often slatted, often moveable sides, suitable for a child who has outgrown a cradle or bassinet.

  2. 2

    UKA bed for a child older than a baby.

  3. 3

    A small sleeping berth in a packet or other small vessel.

  4. 4

    A wicker basket.

  5. 5

    A manger, a feeding trough for animals elevated off the earth or floor, especially one for fodder such as hay.

  6. 6

    The baby Jesus and the manger in a creche or nativity scene, consisting of statues of Mary, Joseph and various other characters such as the magi.

  7. 7

    A bin for drying or storing grain, such as a corn crib.

  8. 8

    A small room or covered structure, especially one of rough construction, used for storage or penning animals.

verb

  1. 1

    To place or confine in a crib.

  2. 2

    To shut up or confine in a narrow habitation; to cage; to cramp.

  3. 3

    To collect one or more passages and/or references for use in a speech, written document or as an aid for some task; to create a crib sheet.

    I cribbed the recipe from the Food Network site, but made a few changes of my own.

  4. 4

    informalTo plagiarize; to copy; to cheat.

  5. 5

    To install timber supports, as with cribbing.

  6. 6

    archaicTo steal or embezzle.

  7. 7

    IndiaTo complain, to grumble

  8. 8

    To crowd together, or to be confined, as if in a crib or in narrow accommodations.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Crib in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchberceau (a baby’s bed with high sides), huche (a feeding trough for animals), antisèche (notes concealed by a student to aid him/her in…)
GermanGitterbett (a baby’s bed with high sides), Krippe (a feeding trough for animals), Spickzettel, Schummelzettel (notes concealed by a student to aid him/her in…)
Portugueseberço (a baby’s bed with high sides), manjedoura, cocho (a feeding trough for animals), cola (notes concealed by a student to aid him/her in…), furto, plágio ((obsolete in English) petty theft or plagiarism)
Spanishcuna (a baby’s bed with high sides), machete, chuleta (notes concealed by a student to aid him/her in…), fusilar (to plagiarize or steal)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does crib come from?

From Middle English crib, cribbe, from Old English crib, cryb, cribb, crybb (“couch, bed; manger, stall”), from Proto-West Germanic *kribbjā, from Proto-Germanic *kribjǭ (“crib, wickerwork”), from Proto-Indo-European *grebʰ-, *gerbʰ- (“bunch, bundle, tuft, clump”), from *ger- (“to turn, twist”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after crib