gleben.
/ɡliːb/, U.S. /ɡlib/ 1. † b. Crop. Obsolete. rare.
a. The soil of the earth, regarded as the source of vegetable products; earth, land. Occasionally soil and glebe. Now only poetic or rhetorical.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > structure of the earth > constituent materials > earth or soil > soil qualities > [noun] > soil as source of growth
glebea1387
soilc1400
soil bank1955
a1387 J. Trevisa tr. R. Higden Polychron. (St. John's Cambr.) (1865) I. 397 Þey þat this londe [Wales] Be wel lasse þan Engelonde, As good glebe is oon as other [L. par glebæ gloria].
1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomew de Glanville De Proprietatibus Rerum xiv. xliv. (Tollem. MS.) The glebe [1535 soile] of þat mounte [Thabor] bereþ vynes, olyues, and oþer tren with frute.
a1513 H. Bradshaw Lyfe St. Werburge (1521) i. ii. sig. a.vi The soyle and glebe, is set plentuous and commendable.
1598 T. Bastard Chrestoleros iii. xxii. 66 Howses by three, and seauen, and ten he raseth, To make the common gleabe, his priuate land.
1656 A. Cowley Davideis iv. 142 in Poems The fertile glebe requires no time to breed; It quickens and receives at once the Seed.
1748 J. Hervey Contempl. Night in Medit. & Contempl. (ed. 4) II. 30 The Frosts mellow the Soil... The rushing Rains impregnate the Glebe, and fit it for a Magazine of Plenty.
1800–24 T. Campbell Power of Russia v The glebe of fifty kingdoms shall be till'd To feed his dazzling, desolating train.
1841 G. Catlin Lett. N. Amer. Indians II. lviii. 224 The great family of North American Indians..are dying at our hands, and rendering their glebe to our possession.
1867 Felton's Greece, Anc. & Mod. I. 321 A troop of boys..pile upon the golden glebe the triumphs of the day.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > farming > cultivation or tillage > cultivation of plants or crops > crop or crops > [noun]
wastumc888
tiltha1100
estrea1300
madder-cropc1300
gainage1390
cropa1400
yieldingc1405
emblement1495
burden?1523
increase1535
field-ware1546
gather1555
esplees1598
husbandrya1616
glebe1660
warea1661
récolte1669
tilling1680
tillage1681
stuffa1687
growing1722
bearing1747
raccolta1748
the crops1789
plant1832
raising1857
cropping1861
1660 J. Childrey Britannia Baconica 99 The Soil is..in som parts so fruitful, that after three years Gleab of Saffron..the Land..wil yeeld plenty.
2.
a. A piece of cultivated land, a field. Now poetic.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > farming > farm > farmland > [noun] > enclosed land or field
tye832
hopea1000
fieldOE
field landOE
glebe1387
parka1393
closec1440
outset1506
intake1523
rout1598
fielden1610
town park1701
paddock1808
savannah1882
1387 J. Trevisa tr. R. Higden Polychron. (Rolls) VIII. 335 Þe nynþe scheef [of] everich glebe [L. de omni gleba] of Engelond he ordeyned for his owne iourneys.
1712 J. Addison Paraphr. Psalms xxiii When in the sultry Glebe I faint, Or on the thirsty Mountains pant.
1764 Oxford Sausage 195 To see his Brethren [horses]..Smoak through the Glebe, or trace the destin'd Road.
1792 R. Burns Poems & Songs (1968) II. 626 A gleib o' lan', a claut o' gear, Was left me by my Auntie, Tam.
1833 Ld. Tennyson Poems 57 Many an..upland glebe wealthy in oil and wine.
b. spec. A portion of land assigned to a clergyman as part of his benefice.
ΘΚΠ
society > faith > artefacts > land > [noun] > of cleric
glebec1380
glebe-land1536
kirktown1872
1302–3 Year-bk. Edw. I (Rolls) 207 Chose qe est une feez glebe ne poet estre jammes fraunche aumoyne.]
c1380 J. Wyclif Wks. (1880) 449 Ȝif persouns hadden no glebe & no propre hous as eritage, þey sueden more Crist & his apostlis.
1451 in R. Arnold Chron. (c1503) f. lxxv/2 Prouided alwey that this acte extende not to cherches beyng in spirituel mennys handis ne to gleuis [so printed; ? read glebis] off the same.
1528–30 tr. T. Littleton Tenures (new ed.) f. xliiii If a parson of a chyrch charge a glebe of his chyrch by his dede, [etc.].
1654 T. Gataker Disc. Apol. 48 I let out my whole Tithe and Gleab for One hundred pounds by the year.
1704 R. Nelson Compan. Festivals & Fasts ii. x. 486 The Laws of the Land assign to the Clergy..the Manse or House and Glebe.
1826 W. Cobbett Rural Rides in Cobbett's Weekly Polit. Reg. 30 Sept. 30 This parish is a rectory;..it has a glebe, and a good solid house.
1859 W. M. Thackeray Virginians v Virginia was a Church of England colony: the clergymen were paid by the State and glebes allotted to them.
1873 W. H. Dixon Hist. Two Queens I. iii. i. 118 Investing every yard and inn, and when their wants were pressing every glebe and hall.
a. A clod or mass of earth, ore, etc. (cf. quot. 1728). Also figurative. Obsolete.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > structure of the earth > constituent materials > earth or soil > [noun] > clod
clouta1250
gluga1382
clotc1400
clodc1440
glebea1513
turf1607
clat1628
a1513 H. Bradshaw Lyfe St. Werburge (1521) i. xxxii. sig. l.vi Than this vitall glebe [the body of St. Werburge] by diuine ordinaunce Voluntary permytted naturall resolution.
?a1600 ( R. Sempill Legend Bischop St. Androis in J. Cranstoun Satirical Poems Reformation (1891) I. xlv. Pref. 348 Judas Iscariot, for a gleib of geir, Betrayed his Maister lyk a traytor tod.
1625 T. Jackson Treat. Originall of Vnbeliefe v. l. §6 Gold being severed from drosse or gleibs of earth often intermingled with it.
1728 E. Chambers Cycl. Glebe, Gleba, in Natural History, Chymistry, &c. a Clod or Piece of Earth, containing some Metal, or Mineral... The Glebes are carried to the Forges to be wash'd, purify'd, melted, &c.
1766 T. Amory Life John Buncle II. v. 140 The glittering glebes of a gold colour found here, can be nothing else than glebes gilt with copper.
1825 T. Amory Life John Buncle (new ed.) III. 239 It is found sometimes in glebes or clods.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > minerals > [noun] > a mineral > fragment or particle
spark1562
spangle1611
glebe1731
the world > matter > chemistry > chemical substances > [noun] > small grain or speck of a chemical substance
glebe1731
1731 J. Arbuthnot Ess. Nature Aliments Explan. p. xx The Chymists define Salt..to be a Body fusible in the Fire, congealable again by Cold into brittle Glebes or Chrystals.
1756 C. Lucas Ess. Waters iii. 124 Sulphur, intermixed with glebes of galæna or lead ore.
1766 E. Delaval in Philos. Trans. 1765 (Royal Soc.) 55 36 (note) Iron examined with a microscope when it first becomes rusty, shews it's surface covered with a number of pellucid vitriolic lamellæ, or glebes.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > minerals > types of mineral > [noun] > earthy mineral
yellow earth1552
glebe1577
1577 W. Harrison Descr. Eng. (1878) iii. x. ii. 68 The sulphurous glebe called bitumen.
1657 R. Tomlinson tr. J. de Renou Medicinal Materials ii, in Medicinal Dispensatory sig. Ddd4v* Which [sc. Cinnabar] seems to be a purpureous glebe.
1675 E. Wilson Spadacrene Dunelmensis 42 The Ore or Glebe of Vitriol.
1701 J. Hammond Scelera Aquarum 25 London is situated on a Wicked Bottom of Earth, called Blue clay..This Blue Kind of Glebe..maleficates equally Air and Water.
1712 W. Oldisworth tr. R. Bentley Note in Horace Odes VII. i. xxxvi. 23/1 The old Latins gave Chalk the Name of Creta, because that sort of Glebe was imported from Crete.
1718 J. Quincy Pharmacopœia Officinalis ii. xiv. 231 We must consider that Clay is a mineral Glebe.
Compounds
glebe-house n. a parsonage, manse (now only in Ireland); also †glebe-land house.
ΘΚΠ
society > faith > artefacts > clerical residence (general) > [noun]
mansion1444
manse1534
mansion house1546
glebe-house1645
presbytère1734
presbytery1825
parochial house1829
clergy-house1865
1645 J. Howell Epistolæ Ho-elianæ v. xvi. 22 It lies upon the Thames, and the Glebe-land house is very large and faire.
a1825 T. Jefferson Autobiogr. in Wks. (1859) I. 38 A glebe house and land with the other necessary appendages.
1870 Daily News 11 Feb. His promised Bill for affording facilities for the acquisition of glebes and glebe-houses by the different religious denominations in Ireland.
glebe-land n. (also glebe-lands) = sense 2b above.
ΘΚΠ
society > faith > artefacts > land > [noun] > of cleric
glebec1380
glebe-land1536
kirktown1872
1536 Act 28 Hen. VIII c. 11 §4 All the profites of the corne growyng uppon the same glebe landes so manured and sowen.
1633 P. Massinger New Way to pay Old Debts ii. iii. sig. E4 You may with the lease of glebe land, call'd knaues-acre, A place I would manure, requite your vassall.
1642 tr. J. Perkins Profitable Bk. xi. §709. 309 If a parson of a Church be seised of Glebe Land in the right of his Parsonage, or Vicarage.
1867 A. Trollope Last Chron. Barset I. xxxiii. 284 The archdeacon..had purchased a property..contiguous to the glebe-land.
glebe law n. U.S.
ΚΠ
1836 Southern Literary Messenger 2 285 The whole history of the Glebe Law of 1802—a law the question of whose constitutionality is still undetermined.
glebe lot n. U.S.
ΚΠ
1730 in Maryland Hist. Mag. 8 157 Mr. John Humphreys..hath Liberty from this Vestry to remove the house he built on the Glebe Lot in the City of Annapolis.
Derivatives
glebe v. rare. transitive (a) to furnish (clergyman or church) with a glebe; (b) to set apart as a glebe; (c) (see quot. 1611).
ΘΚΠ
society > faith > artefacts > land > [verb (transitive)] > furnish cleric with land
glebe1611
society > faith > artefacts > land > [verb (transitive)] > set apart land as cleric's
glebe1797
1611 J. Florio Queen Anna's New World of Words Glebáre, to gleebe or breake clods of earth.
1641 B. Rudyerd Speech conc. Bishops sig. A2v Landlords..gleab'd them [sc. parish Churches] with some portion of land.
1797 J. Sinclair Statist. Acct. Scotl. XIX. 329 A great part of the common was subdivided or glebed.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1900; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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