Nib

How to spell nib

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce nib

What does nib mean?

1. nounThe pointed metal tip of a pen, where the ink reaches the paper.
2. nounA small broken piece of roasted cocoa bean, used in cooking and baking.

Nib in a sentence

• The fountain pen wrote unevenly because the nib was bent.

• The recipe called for a single cocoa nib scattered over each truffle.

• A fine nib produces thinner, sharper lines than a broad one.

• Each crunchy nib added a bitter note to the chocolate bar.

Where does nib come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Nib is a variant of the older English word 'neb', which goes back to the Old English 'nebb' meaning a bird's beak, a face, or a nose. The sense developed naturally from 'a beak-like point' to 'the pointed writing tip of a pen', a meaning recorded from the 1600s when quill pens were cut to a fine point. The same Germanic root produced cognate words for 'beak' and 'snout' across the northern languages, including the Dutch 'neb' and various Scandinavian forms. Because the word is so short and phonetic, its spelling has stayed remarkably stable; the only quirk is that 'nib' and 'neb' both survived, with 'nib' winning out for the pen sense while 'neb' lingered in regional dialect for a nose or beak. The connection to a bird's pecking point is a handy way to remember that a nib is the sharp business end that touches the page.

How the word is built

• nib (variant of neb: beak, nose, point)