keb

keb (third-person singular simple present kebs, present participle kebbing, simple past and past participle kebbed)

1. (Northern England, dialect) Of a ewe, to abort a lamb.

keb (plural kebs)

1. (Northern England, dialect) A still-born lamb.

• KBE, BKE, bek, ebk

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• (Southern) IPA^(key):

keb (plural kebs)

1. A ewe that has miscarried her lamb or failed to rear it.
2. A still-born or premature lamb.
3. A miscarriage in one's affairs, a plan which fails to work.

keb (third-person singular present kebs, present participle kebbin, past kebbit, past participle kebbit)

1. (transitive, intransitive) Of a ewe: to cast a lamb prematurely, to give birth to a dead lamb.
   • 1816, Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter XIX, in Tales of My Landlord, , volume I (The Black Dwarf), Edinburgh: [James Ballantyne and Co.] for William Blackwood, ; London: John Murray, , →OCLC, page 362:

     [H]e is usually identified with the malignant dæmon called the Man of the Moors, whose feats were quoted by Mrs Elliot to her grandsons; and, accordingly, is generally represented as bewitching the sheep, causing the ewes to keb, that is, to cast their lambs, or seen loosening the impending wreath of snow to precipitate its weight on such as take shelter, during the storm, […]