jibe

verb \ ˈjīb \

Updated on: 2 Apr 2018

Definition of jibe

jibed; jibing

intransitive verb

: to be in accord : agree —usually used with with

a story that doesn't jibe with the facts

Recent Examples of jibe from the Web

Those views, though, do not seem to jibe with the outlook of the more hawkish members of the Trump administration, who have insisted that Afghan and U.S. forces must regain battlefield momentum before any negotiations occur.

— greg jaffe, Washington Post, "A Dubai shopping trip and a missed chance to capture the head of the Taliban," 24 Mar. 2018
The results don’t always jibe with what’s expected of rappers today—from Chicago or elsewhere—and that’s just another part of London’s charm.

— leor galil, Chicago Reader, "Chicago Renaissance man Malcolm London blurs his roles together on Right Away Series," 22 Mar. 2018
The problem was that my workwear didn’t jibe with my commuter vehicle of choice: a secondhand Mongoose bicycle with a faulty drivetrain.

— clint carter, WSJ, "Cycling Clothes That Double as Office Attire," 22 Mar. 2018
And in the one involving a bakery owner (Becky Ann Baker) and her autistic son (Alex Hurt), traits and actions fail to jibe, especially as those actions take a hard right turn toward another genre entirely.

— jesse green, New York Times, "Review: Anna Chlumsky and Adam Pally Paint the Town Red in ‘Cardinal’," 30 Jan. 2018
Pau Gasol is first, proof that defensive efficiency doesn’t always jibe with the eye test.

— jeff mcdonald, San Antonio Express-News, "Thanks to improving defense, Anderson remains Spurs’ ‘starter for now’," 25 Jan. 2018
Last June, all the wind sprints and tacking drills and jibe lessons, all the afternoon training sessions and the weekend regattas finally paid off: Fordham finished seventh at the Intercollegiate Sailing Association’s national championship.

— zach schonbrun, New York Times, "In Bridge’s Shadow, an Unlikely College Sailing Power," 20 Oct. 2017
This did not jibe with new coach Jeremy Pruitt’s vision for the position, and thus the deal fell apart.

— alex hickey, ajc, "Is there a chance Austin Thomas returns to LSU after Tennessee snafu?," 21 Dec. 2017
The weakest episode of the new season presents flashbacks to Philip’s teenage years and the death of his sister, which humanize him, but don’t quite jibe with the cocky, self-aggrandizing provocateur Smith plays Philip as.

— sophie gilbert, The Atlantic, "The Crown: Netflix's Best Superhero Show," 9 Dec. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'jibe.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

jive vs. jibe

People began confusing jive and jibe almost immediately after jive entered our language in the late 1920s. In particular, jive is often used as a variant for the sense of jibe meaning “agree,” as in “that doesn’t jive with my memory of what happened.” This use of jive, although increasingly common, is widely considered to be an error. Jibe, however, is accepted as a variant spelling of an entirely different word, which is gibe (“to utter taunting words”).

Origin and Etymology of jibe

origin unknown

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 1813

in the meaning defined above

See Words from the same year

jibe

verb

variant spelling of gibe

intransitive verb

: to utter taunting words

transitive verb

: to deride or tease with taunting words

gibed her about her weight

Other Nautical Terms

avast, aweigh, flotsam, jib, keel, lee, port, starboard, stay

jibe

verb

variants: or less commonly gybe

Definition of jibe

jibed also gybed; jibing also gybing

intransitive verb

1 : to shift suddenly and forcibly from one side to the other —used of a fore-and-aft sail or its boom

was the most amazed when he saw me work the boat to and again in the sea by the rudder, and how the sail jibed, and filled this way or that way as the course we sailed changed
—Daniel Defoe

the cutter had lost all four foremost men by the violent jibing of a boom
—Herman Melville

2 : to change a vessel's course when sailing with the wind so that as the stern passes through the eye of the wind the boom swings to the opposite side

transitive verb

: to cause (a sail or vessel) to jibe