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Gig vs Jig - What's the difference?

gig | jig |

As nouns the difference between gig and jig

is that gig is a performing engagement by a musical group; or, generally, any job or role for a musician or performer while jig is a light, brisk musical movement; a gigue.

As verbs the difference between gig and jig

is that gig is to fish or catch with a gig, or fish spear while jig is to move briskly, especially as a dance.

gig

English

Etymology 1

Akin to Old Norse .

Noun

(en noun)
  • (informal, music) A performing engagement by a musical group; or, generally, any job or role for a musician or performer.
    • I caught one of the Rolling Stones' first gigs in Richmond .
    Hey, when are we gonna get that hotel gig again?
    Our guitar player had another gig so we had to get a sub.
  • (informal, by extension) Any job; especially one that is temporary; or alternately, one that is very desirable.
    • I had this gig as a file clerk but it wasn't my style so I left .
    Hey, that guy's got a great gig over at the bike shop. He hardly works all day!
  • A two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage.
  • * 1967 , William Styron, The Confessions of Nat Turner , Vintage 2004, p. 77:
    • the room grew stifling warm and vapor clung to the windowpanes, blurring the throng of people still milling outside the courthouse, a row of tethered gigs and buggies, distant pine trees in a scrawny, ragged grove.
  • (archaic) A forked spear for catching fish, frogs, or other small animals.
  • (South England) A six-oared sea rowing boat commonly found in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.
  • (US, military) A demerit received for some infraction of military dress or deportment codes.
    • I received gigs for having buttons undone.

    Verb

  • To fish or catch with a gig, or fish spear.
  • To engage in musical performances.
    • The Stones were gigging around Richmond at the time
  • To make fun of; to make a joke at someone's expense, often condescending.
    • His older cousin was just gigging him about being in love with that girl from school.
  • (US, military) To impose a demerit for an infraction of a dress or deportment code.
    • His sergeant gigged him for an unmade bunk.

    Etymology 2

    A shortening of (gigabyte).

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • (colloquial, computing) A gigabyte.
    • This picture is almost a gig ; don't you wanna resize it?
    How much music does it hold?'' ''A hundred and twenty gigs .

    Etymology 3

    (etyl) gigge.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A playful or wanton girl; a giglot.

    • Etymology 4

    Probably from (etyl) (lena) .

    Verb

  • To engender.
    • (Dryden)
    (Webster 1913)

    Anagrams

    * (l) English clippings English palindromes ----

    jig

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (music) A light, brisk musical movement; a gigue.
  • A lively dance in 6/8 (double jig), 9/8 (slip jig) or 12/8 (single jig) time; a tune suitable for such a dance. By extension, a lively traditional tune in any of these time signatures. Unqualified, the term is usually taken to refer to a double (6/8) jig.
    • they danced a jig
  • * 2012 , Tom Lamont, How Mumford & Sons became the biggest band in the world'' (in ''The Daily Telegraph , 15 November 2012)[http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/nov/15/mumford-sons-biggest-band-world]
    • Soon Marshall is doing an elaborate foot-to-foot jig , and then they're all bounding around. Shoulder dips. Yee-ha faces. It's an impromptu hoedown.
  • A dance performed by one or sometimes two individual dancers, as opposed to a dance performed by a set or team.
  • (fishing) A type of lure consisting of a hook molded into a weight, usually with a bright or colorful body.
  • A device in manufacturing, woodworking, or other creative endeavors for controlling the location, path of movement, or both of either a workpiece or the tool that is operating upon it. Subsets of this general class include machining jigs, woodworking jigs, welders' jigs, jewelers' jigs, and many others.
    • Cutting circles out of pinewood is best done with a compass-style jig .
  • (mining) An apparatus or machine for jigging ore.
  • (obsolete) A light, humorous piece of writing, especially in rhyme; a farce in verse; a ballad.
  • * (rfdate) Beaumont and Fletcher
    • A jig shall be clapped at, and every rhyme / Praised and applauded.
  • (obsolete) A trick; a prank.
  • * (rfdate) Beaumont and Fletcher
    • Is't not a fine jig , / A precious cunning, in the late Protector?

    Derived terms

    * the jig is up * dance the hempen jig

    Verb

  • To move briskly, especially as a dance.
    • The guests were jigging around on the dancefloor
  • (fishing) To fish with a jig.
  • To sing to the tune of a jig.
  • * Shakespeare
    • Jig off a tune at the tongue's end.
  • To trick or cheat; to cajole; to delude.
    • (Ford)
  • (mining) To sort or separate, as ore in a jigger or sieve.
  • To cut or form, as a piece of metal, in a jigging machine.