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''ebb'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260331180822-00-⌔

ebb - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

ebb (plural ebbs)

  • The receding movement of the tide.
    • ✤ The boats will go out on the ebb.
    • ✤ Thou shoreless flood which in thy ebb and flow/Claspest the limits of morality!1
    • ✤ Men come from distant parts to admire the tides of Solway, which race in at flood and retreat at ebb with a greater speed than a horse can follow.2
  • A gradual decline.
    • ✤ Thus all the treasure of our flowing years,/Our ebb of life for ever takes away.3
    • ✤ This reflection thawed my congealing blood, and again the tide of life and love flowed impetuously onward, again to ebb as my busy thoughts changed.4
    • ✤ Industrialism hasn’t been an abiding set of activities in any particular place but rather a dynamic cycle, of takeoff, peak, and ebb.5
  • (especially in the phrase ‘at a low ebb’) A low state; a state of depression.
    • ✤ Painting was then at its lowest ebb.6
    • ✤ A “lowest ebb” implies something singular and finite, but for many of us, born in the Depression and raised by parents distrustful of fortune, an “ebb” might easily have lasted for years.7
    • ✤ The 1987 book British Piers was written at a time when Britain’s seaside resorts were perhaps at their lowest ebb, with a groundswell of support for rejuvenation and conservation just beginning.8
  • A European bunting, the corn bunting (Emberiza calandra, syns. Emberiza miliaria, Milaria calandra).

Adjective

ebb (comparative ebber, superlative ebbest)

  • low, shallow
    • ✤ All the sea lying betweene, is verie ebbe, full of shallowes and shelves9

Verb

ebb (third-person singular simple present ebbs, present participle ebbing, simple past and past participle ebbed)

  • (intransitive) to flow back or recede
    • ✤ Synonyms: go out, go down, ooze, reflux, wane
    • ✤ The tides ebbed at noon.
  • (intransitive) to fall away or decline
    • ✤ The dying man’s strength ebbed away.
  • (intransitive) to fish with stakes and nets that serve to prevent the fish from getting back into the sea with the ebb
  • (transitive) To cause to flow back.
    • ✤ Parts of this town do not want a big influx of gay people and are trying to ebb it.10

Pronunciation

  • enPR: ĕb, IPA: /ɛb/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -ɛb

Etymology 1

From Middle English ebbe, from Old English ebba (“ebb, tide”), from Proto-West Germanic ﹡abbjā, from Proto-Germanic ﹡abjô, ﹡abjǭ, from Proto-Germanic ﹡ab (“off, away”), from Proto-Indo-European ﹡apó.

See also West Frisian ebbe, Dutch eb, German Ebbe, Danish ebbe, Old Norse efja (“countercurrent”), Old English af. More at of, off.

Etymology 2

From Middle English ebben, from Old English ebbian, from Proto-West Germanic ﹡abbjōn (“to ebb”).

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1824, Mary Shelley, Time: ↩

  2. 1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide: ↩

  3. 1684, Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon, Essay on Translated Verse: ↩

  4. 1826, [Mary Shelley], The Last Man. […], volume, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC: ↩

  5. 2012, James Howard Kunstler, Too Much Magic, page 74: ↩

  6. 1695, C[harles] A[lphonse] du Fresnoy, translated by John Dryden, De Arte Graphica. The Art of Painting, […], London: […] J[ohn] Heptinstall for W. Rogers, […], →OCLC: ↩

  7. 2002, Joyce Carol Oates, The New Yorker, number 22 & 29 April: ↩

  8. 2020 July 29, Dr Joseph Brennan, “Railways that reach out over the waves”, in Rail, page 51: ↩

  9. 1601, C[aius] Plinius Secundus [i.e., Pliny the Elder], “”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Historie of the World. Commonly Called, The Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus. […],, London: […] Adam Islip, →OCLC: ↩

  10. 1977 August 20, Robin Nicholson, quotee, “7 Arrested in Undercover Raid on P’town Bar”, in Gay Community News, volume 5, number 7, page 1: ↩

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