squib

Possibly imitative of a small explosion.[1]

• IPA^(key): /skwɪb/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪb

squib (plural squibs)

1. (military) A small firework that is intended to spew sparks rather than explode.

   English Navy squibs set fire to two dozen enemy ships in a Dutch harbor during the 16th-century battle against the Spanish Armada.

   • 1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC:

     The making and selling of fireworks and squibs […] is punishable.

2. A similar device used to ignite an explosive or launch a rocket, etc.
3. (mining) A kind of slow match or safety fuse.
4. (US) Any small firecracker sold to the general public, usually in special clusters designed to explode in series after a single master fuse is lit.
5. (firearms) A malfunction in which the fired projectile does not have enough force behind it to exit the barrel, and thus becomes stuck.
6. (automotive) The heating element used to set off the sodium azide pellets in a vehicle's airbag.
7. (film, theater) In special effects, a small explosive used to replicate a bullet hitting a surface or a gunshot wound on an actor.
8. (dated) A short piece of witty writing; a lampoon.
   • 1774, [Oliver] Goldsmith, “Postscript”, in Retaliation: A Poem. […], 5th edition, London: […] G[eorge] Kearsly, […], →OCLC, page 21:

     Ye nevvs-paper vvitlings! ye pert ſcribbling folks! / VVho copied his ſquibs, and re-echoed his jokes, […]

   • 2005, Mark Caldwell, New York Night, page 133:

     Of the dozen or so surviving articles, squibs, and letters to the editor, the most remarkable appeared in the Whip and Satirist’s February 12, 1842, issue, and disclosed the existence of a cabal of gay men in New York's otherwise wholesome nightscape of brothels and riots.

9. (dated) A writer of lampoons.
   • November 1, 1709, Richard Steele, The Tatler

     The squibs are those who in the common phrase of the world are called libellers, lampooners, and pamphleteers.

10. (law) In a legal casebook, a short summary of a legal action placed between more extensively quoted cases.
11. (linguistics) A short article, often published in journals, that introduces theoretically problematic empirical data or discusses an overlooked theoretical problem. In contrast to a typical article, a squib need not answer the questions that it poses.
    • 2008, William J. Idsardi, Combinatorics for Metrical Feet, in Biolinguistics Vol 2, No 2

      In this squib I will prove that the number of possible metrical parsings into feet under these assumptions […]

12. (archaic except in idioms) An unimportant, paltry, or mean-spirited person.
    • 1591, Edmund Spenser, Mother Hubberds Tale ll. 369-371:

      Its a hard case when men of good deserving / must either driven be perforce to sterving / or asked for their pas by everie squib.

13. (graphic design) A sketched concept or visual solution, usually very quick and not too detailed.
14. (chiefly Australia) A coward or wimp.
    • 2021, Joe Brumm, “Pass the Parcel”, in Bluey, season 3, episode 13, spoken by Lucky's Dad (Brad Elliot):

      I'm putting my foot down, Janelle. We're raising a nation of squibs!

squib (third-person singular simple present squibs, present participle squibbing, simple past and past participle squibbed)

1. To make a sound like a small explosion.

   A Snider squibbed in the jungle.

2. (colloquial, dated, transitive, intransitive) To throw squibs; to utter sarcastic or severe reflections; to contend in petty dispute.

   to squib a little debate

3. (Australia) To dodge something difficult, to bottle.
   • 2007 September 11, Australia. Parliament. House of Representatives, Parliamentary Debates (Hansard).: House of Representatives:

     He squibbed the opportunity to push the claim that Kyoto should remain the flagship for international action - because deep down those on the other side know that the world has moved on beyond Kyoto.

• quibs