gin

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   trap with a snare

   Gin game.

2. 2
   noun

   Drawing the best card or combination of cards.

   Johnny Chan held jack-nine, and hit gin when a queen-ten-eight board was dealt out.

3. 3
   noun

   A scheme; contrivance; artifice; a figurative trap or snare.

   The church dores were sparred, Fast boltyd and barryd, Yet wyth a prety gyn I fortuned to come in, […].

4. 4
   noun

   A snare or trap for game.

   It was the cry of a rabbit caught in a gin.

Partly from Middle English gin, ginne (“cleverness, scheme, talent, device, machine”), from Old French gin, an aphetism of Old French engin (“engine”); and partly from Middle English grin, grine (“snare, trick, stratagem, deceit, temptation, noose, halter, instrument”), from Old English grin, gryn, giren (“snare, gin, noose”).

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