gin

Etymology 1

Abbreviation of geneva, alteration of Dutch genever (“juniper”) from Old French genevre (modern French genièvre), from Vulgar Latin ziniperus, from Latin iūniperus (“juniper”). Hence gin rummy (first attested 1941).

noun

1. A colourless non-aged alcoholic liquor made by distilling fermented grains such as barley, corn, oats or rye with juniper berries; the base for many cocktails.
2. (uncountable) Gin rummy.
3. (poker) Drawing the best card or combination of cards.
   Johnny Chan held jack-nine, and hit gin when a queen-ten-eight board was dealt out.

Etymology 2

table Partly from Middle English gin, ginne (“cleverness, scheme, talent, device, machine”), from Old French gin, an aphetism of Old French engin (“engine”); and partly from Middle English grin, grine (“snare, trick, stratagem, deceit, temptation, noose, halter, instrument”), from Old English grin, gryn, giren, geren (“snare, gin, noose”).

noun

1. (obsolete) A trick; a device or instrument.
2. (obsolete) A scheme; contrivance; artifice; a figurative trap or snare.
3. A snare or trap for game.
4. A machine for raising or moving heavy objects, consisting of a tripod formed of poles united at the top, with a windlass, pulleys, ropes, etc.
5. (mining) A hoisting drum, usually vertical; a whim.
6. A pile driver.
7. A windpump.
8. A cotton gin.
9. An instrument of torture worked with screws.

verb

1. (transitive) To remove the seeds from cotton with a cotton gin.
2. (transitive) To trap something in a gin.

Etymology 3

Inherited from Middle English ginnen (“to begin”), contraction of beginnen.

verb

1. (archaic) To begin.

Etymology 4

Borrowed from Dharug dyin (“woman”), but having acquired a derogatory tone.

noun

1. (Australia, now considered offensive) An Aboriginal woman.
   His next shot was discharged amongst the mob, and most unfortunately wounded the gin already mentioned ; who, with a child fastened to her back, slid down the bank, and lay, apparently dying, with her legs in the water. 1869, Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, volume 1, page 273
   1894, Ivan Dexter, Talmud: A Strange Narrative of Central Australia, published in serial form in Port Adelaide News and Lefevre's Peninsula Advertiser (SA), Chapter XXI, http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks16/1600641.txt From my position I could see the gins pointing back, and as the men turned they looked for a moment and then made a wild rush for the entrance.
   How they must have laughed about the strutting of her whose mother was a wanton and aunt a gin! 1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter XXI, in Capricornia, D. Appleton-Century, published 1943, page 353
   Dad said Shoesmith and Thompson had made one error that cost them their lives by letting the gins into the camp, and the blacks speared them all. 1988, Tom Cole, Hell West and Crooked, Angus & Robertson, published 1995, page 179
   But there was this gin there, see, what they called a kitchen girl. 2008, Bill Marsh, Jack Goldsmith, Goldie: Adventures in a Vanishing Australia, unnumbered page

Etymology 5

Cognate to Scots gin (“if”): perhaps from gi(v)en, or a compound in which the first element is from Old English ġif (English if) and the second is cognate to English an (“if”) (compare iffen), or perhaps from again.

conj

1. (chiefly Scotland, Northern England, Southern US, Appalachia) If.
   […]for pronouncing according as one would ſay at London I would eat more cheeſe if I had it, the Northern man ſaith, Ay ſuld eat mare cheeſe gin ay hadet, and the Weſterne man ſaith Chud eat more cheeſe an chad it. 1605, Richard Verstegan, Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, in Antiquities: Concerning the Most Noble, and Renowned English Nation
   Gin the plough rests on the bank, / The loom, the nation, dies. 1804, Robert Couper, Poetry, I. 196
   An' gin I'm weel and can keep sober / You may look for it in October. 1809, Thomas Donaldson, Poems, section 76
   He's get han' and siller, / Gin he fancies me. 1815, Robert Anderson, Ballads in the Cumberland dialect, page 152
   yon felley at Barleigh has wrote farrantly (fairly) to my naunt; gin Robin could bur see ť letter he'd foind no fawt wi' me. 1860, J. P. K. Shuttleworth, Scarsdale; Or, Life on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Border, Thirty Years Ago, page 158
   Wheeah, Ah thinks thee could, gin ye tried. 1870, John Christopher Atkinson, Lost; or, What came of a slip from 'honour bright'., page 19
   "Aw'd never ha slept i' mi bed gin that little un had bin dreawnded, an' me lookin' on loike a stump. Neay; that lass wur Bess, moi wench. We'n no notion wheer th' lad's mother is." Mr. Clough would have pressed the money upon him, but he put it back with a motion of his han. 1876, Mrs. George Linnaeus Banks, The Manchester Man, page 15
   […] gin schoo sets off in a tantrum an' flaah's t'mistress wiv her blutherin […] 1880, Wooers, Banks, I. iv