What does cribble mean?
A cribble is a coarse sieve or riddle, historically used to sort granular materials by size — separating finer particles such as flour or powdered ore from larger fragments like husks or stones. The word also survives as a verb meaning to sift something through such a sieve, though that use is now exceedingly rare. Cribble belongs firmly to the vocabulary of pre-industrial trades: millers passed threshed grain through cribbles to clean it, and miners used them to prepare ore for smelting. In modern English the word has effectively fallen out of everyday use and appears almost exclusively in historical writing about agriculture, milling, or mining. Its near-obliteration from the language makes it a curiosity rather than a working word, but it remains a precise term for anyone reading older technical descriptions of how grain, ore, and similar materials were graded by hand.
A coarse sieve or riddle used for separating larger from finer particles of grain, ore, or similar materials.
"The miner tipped the crushed rock onto the cribble and shook out the dust."
Now archaic; found mainly in historical texts on milling and mining.
To sift or pass material through a cribble.
"They cribbled the ore before sending it to the furnace."
Very rare; essentially obsolete outside historical contexts.
The plural follows standard English patterns; because the word itself is rare, its plural is correspondingly uncommon.
"The old mill still kept several wooden-framed cribbles hanging in the loft."
Before industrial screens existed, miners and millers relied on the humble cribble — a rough-hewn sieve that decided which grains made the grade.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of cribble
Cribble entered Middle English from Old French 'crible', meaning a sieve, a noun derived from the verb 'cribler', to sift. It was adopted into English during the medieval period as part of the vocabulary of milling and metalworking. The word remained in technical use into the early modern era before gradually falling out of circulation, leaving only traces in historical dictionaries and trade records.
How cribble is actually used
Cribble is an archaic or very rare word today, encountered mainly in historical accounts of milling, mining, and metallurgy. It carries no figurative or idiomatic usage in modern English, and most contemporary readers will meet it only in older technical texts.
Easily confused with cribble
Scribble means to write hastily or carelessly, whereas cribble is a rare word for a coarse sieve or the act of sifting through one.
Dribble refers to letting liquid fall in drops or moving a ball with small touches, unrelated to cribble's meaning of sieving.