squib

Etymology

Possibly imitative of a small explosion.

noun

1. (military) A small firework that is intended to spew sparks rather than explode.
   English Navy squibs set fire to two dozen enemy ships in a Dutch harbor during the 16th-century battle against the Spanish Armada.
2. A similar device used to ignite an explosive or launch a rocket, etc.
3. (mining) A kind of slow match or safety fuse.
4. (US) Any small firecracker sold to the general public, usually in special clusters designed to explode in series after a single master fuse is lit.
5. (firearms) A malfunction in which the fired projectile does not have enough force behind it to exit the barrel, and thus becomes stuck.
6. (automotive) The heating element used to set off the sodium azide pellets in a vehicle's airbag.
7. (film, theater) In special effects, a small explosive used to replicate a bullet hitting a surface.
8. (dated) A short piece of witty writing; a lampoon.
   Of the dozen or so surviving articles, squibs, and letters to the editor, the most remarkable appeared in the Whip and Satirist’s February 12, 1842, issue, and disclosed the existence of a cabal of gay men in New York's otherwise wholesome nightscape of brothels and riots. 2005, Mark Caldwell, New York Night, page 133
9. (dated) A writer of lampoons.
   November 1, 1709, Richard Steele, The Tatler The squibs are those who in the common phrase of the world are called libellers, lampooners, and pamphleteers.
10. (law) In a legal casebook, a short summary of a legal action placed between more extensively quoted cases.
11. (linguistics) A short article, often published in journals, that introduces theoretically problematic empirical data or discusses an overlooked theoretical problem. In contrast to a typical article, a squib need not answer the questions that it poses.
    In this squib I will prove that the number of possible metrical parsings into feet under these assumptions […] 2008, William J. Idsardi, Combinatorics for Metrical Feet, in Biolinguistics Vol 2, No 2
12. (archaic except in idioms) An unimportant, paltry, or mean-spirited person.
    Its a hard case when men of good deserving / must either driven be perforce to sterving / or asked for their pas by everie squib. 1591, Edmund Spenser, Mother Hubberds Tale ll. 369-371
13. (graphic design) A sketched concept or visual solution, usually very quick and not too detailed.

verb

1. To make a sound like a small explosion.
   A Snider squibbed in the jungle.
2. (colloquial, dated, transitive, intransitive) To throw squibs; to utter sarcastic or severe reflections; to contend in petty dispute.
   to squib a little debate