Other forms: bibs
A bib is a cloth tied under a baby's chin to catch the mess. A plastic bib, put the bib on, a stained bib.
The word comes from an old verb meaning to drink, which is what the cloth was for. It also names the numbered square a runner wears in a race, and the bib of dungarees is the panel over the chest, from the same idea of something worn at the front.
1nounbibA cloth tied under a baby's chin to catch the mess.
“She tied a bib around the baby's neck before feeding him his carrots.”
bib is a cloth.
From an old verb bib, to drink, from Latin bibere. The cloth was named for what it caught.
Proto-Indo-European
*peh₃-
Latin
bibō — to drink
Middle English
bibben
English, today
bib
Originally verb sense “drink heartily”, from Middle English bibben, either from Latin bibō (“to drink”) or of imitative origin. Noun sense (clothing) presumably either because worn while drinking, or because the clothing itself “drinks up” spills.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA