Why do Australians and NZers call snacks/lunch *crib*?

Question

From another question I found out that Australians and New Zealanders call lunch and snacks crib.

On the Macquarie dictionary site, there are several (user contributed) theories about why, but nothing authoritative. These all seem to agree that it's a mining term likely from Cornish dialect, but disagree as to it's original meaning.

User067531 provided the link to Macquarie's in his answer here.

I was unable to find anything on etymonline or elsewhere showing this derivation.

Eddie Kal · Accepted Answer

Ok I just looked it up in the OED, which is what I should have done yesterday. The first recorded usage of crib to mean "food" or "a light meal" predates James Cook, i.e. the first European contact with Australia.

dialect, Australian, and New Zealand. Food, provisions; a light meal or snack; a piece of bread, cake, etc. Frequently attributive.

1652   R. Brome Joviall Crew ii. sig. F3   Here's Pannum and Lap, and good Poplars of Yarrum, To fill up the Crib, and to comfort the Quarron.
  1825   J. Jamieson Etymol. Dict. Sc. Lang. Suppl. (at cited word)   Haste ye, and gi'e me ma..crib, Guid-wife.
  1872   Notes & Queries 4th Ser. 9 47/1   The gift..was generally a small cake..and was called the ‘christening crib’—a crib of bread or cake being a provincialism for a bit of bread, &c.  
  1880   M. A. Courtney W. Cornwall Words in M. A. Courtney & T. Q. Couch Gloss. Words Cornwall 15/2   Crib, a crust of bread; fragments of meat. ‘Eat up your cribs.’
  1881   Trans. Amer. Inst. Mining Engineers 1880–1 9 124   Crib...3. A miner's luncheon.
  1889   Daily News 4 Apr. 4/8   In the pocket of each of the garments was a pasty and a ‘crib’ (apparently a small loaf).
  1904   ‘G. B. Lancaster’ Sons o' Men 159   Sereld..growled because someone had spilt tobacco-ash into his crib—which is bushman for dinner.
  1908   Westm. Gaz. 13 May 6/1   Half an hour's ‘crib’ time [at Blackball, N.Z.] is also granted.
  1926   K. S. Prichard Working Bullocks xi. 108   Red picked up his crib-bag.
  1928   J. Devanny Dawn Beloved xxx. 273   He stopped..to hang up his towel and crib tin.
  1942   A. L. Rowse Cornish Childhood ii. 30   He used to take it to work with him and at crib-time (i.e. lunch-time) would entertain his fellows with it.
  1947   A. Vogt in D. M. Davin N.Z. Short Stories (1953) 364   Ben went to work [in the bush] each day like the rest of the men, with his crib and oil-skin.
  1954   Coast to Coast 1953–4 37   Jacques was holding out his crib. ‘Time to eat.’.. Crib over, the men rolled cigarettes.
  1971   J. Turner Stone Dormitory iii. 30   ‘Just come in for me crib. It's time.’.. ‘It's ready for you, Tom,’ she said, putting the bread and cheese and tea before him.

Based off of this I am not so sure about Cornish though. Richard Brome was English who as far as I can find spent his adult life in London, and John Jameson was Scottish.

user 66974 · Answer

Probably, as suggested by GDoS, from the following sense of crib:

crib n.2

(SE crib, a container for animal fodder)

(Aus./N.Z.) a snack, a light meal, a piece of bread, cake etc; thus crib bag, crib break, crib room, cribtime.

1870    [UK]    Old Hunks in Darkey Drama 5 53: harry: I’m witness that you promised to give Tommy something better than a crib. tommy: A good round dinner.
  1900–10 [Aus]   Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 52: CRIB: miners term for a twenty-minute interval for food or smoke-ho, known as crib-time; and lunch carried to work is known as crib.

The Cornish origin seems plausible. From List of Cornish dialect words:

Crib - a mid-morning break for a snack.
  
  The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.) has "Food, provisions, light meal, etc." (dialectal) as one of the meanings of "crib" giving several examples including quotations from M. A. Courtney's Glossary (1880) and Rowse's Cornish Childhood (1942).

Ian Speer · Answer

In underground mining cribbage is used to support the ground and areas where men would congregate to eat were called crib rooms these areas were generally safer than nearer the active mining areas. Moving on it is a common expression to this day (in the WA Goldfields) to take your crib to work and it is eaten mid shift. Underground workers and miners always had a crib tin as the environment was wet and also there were rats about and they would eat your food. The first thing I got when I started work in a gold mine many years ago was a crib tin.

Answered by Ian Speer on April 21, 2021

Karen · Answer

I’m from Cornwall UK and this is definitely a Cornish term. Most people use this term for elevenses or mid morning. Usually moreso amongst farmers, fisherman, builders and once miners. Crib is mid morning, lunch is dinner and dinner is tea when you live in Cornwall! Karen

Answered by Karen on April 21, 2021

Greybeard · Answer

The OED etymology of the word relates "crib" to a container: A common West Germanic noun: Old English crib(b) (feminine) = Old Frisian cribbe , Old Saxon kribbja (Middle Dutch cribbe , Dutch krib , kribbe ), Old High German chrippa (Middle High German and modern German krippe ).

1 a. A barred receptacle for fodder used in cowsheds and fold-yards;
1847   F. Marryat Children of New Forest I. v. 94   The animal could move about a little and eat out of the crib.

The OED continues along the "food container" vein:

Supposed to be etymologically related to Middle High German krebe masculine basket, which may again stand in ablaut relation to korb, corf

I suspect that the link for "crib" in the sense of "lunch" is between the container for cattle food and the container for human food - and hence, by extension, the food that was in it.

Why do Australians and NZers call snacks/lunch crib?

5 Answers

Add your own answers!

Ask a Question