gin

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun Gin rummy.
• noun A strong colorless alcoholic beverage made by distilling or redistilling rye or other grain spirits and adding juniper berries and sometimes other flavorings such as anise, caraway seeds, or angelica root.
• noun Any of several machines or devices, especially.
• noun A machine for hoisting or moving heavy objects.
• noun A pile driver.
• noun A snare or trap for game.
• noun A pump operated by a windmill.
• noun A cotton gin.
• transitive verb To remove the seeds from (cotton) with a cotton gin.
• transitive verb To trap in a gin.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To begin (which see).
• [In Middle English the preterit of this verb (gan, gon, can, con, etc.) was much used with a following infinitive, with or without to, as having, besides its regular inceptive meaning ‘began to,’ a merely preterit force, being equivalent to the simple preterit of the second verb: as, he gan go, equivalent to he did go or he went. This auxiliary was supplanted in the fifteenth century by did, though its use, as an archaism, continued much later.
• To catch in a trap.
• To clear (cotton) of seeds by means of the cotton-gin.
• noun An Australian native woman; an old woman generally.
• noun A contraction of given.
• noun An aromatic spirit prepared from rye or other grain and flavored with juniper-berries.
• Against (a certain time); by: as, I′ ll be there gin five o′ clock.
• If; suppose.
• noun I. Contrivance; crafty means; artifice.
• noun A mechanical contrivance; a machine; an engine.
• noun An engine of torture.
• noun A machine used instead of a crane, consisting essentially of three poles from 12 to 15 feet in length, often tapering from the lower extremity to the top, and united at their upper extremities, whence a block and tackle is suspended, the lower extremities being planted in the ground about 8 or 9 feet asunder, and having a windlass attached to two of them.
• noun In coal-mining, the machinery for raising ore or coal from a mine by horse-power. [Eng.] Generally called whim or whim-gin in the United States.
• noun A machine for separating the seeds from cotton, hence called a cotton-gin. See cut undercotton-gin.
• noun A machine for driving piles.
• noun A pump moved by rotary sails.
• noun A trap; a snare; a springe.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• conjunction Scotch If.
• transitive verb obsolete To catch in a trap.
• transitive verb To clear of seeds by a machine.
• preposition Scot. Against; near by; towards.
• noun A strong alcoholic liquor, distilled from rye and barley, and flavored with juniper berries; -- also called Hollands and Holland gin, because originally, and still very extensively, manufactured in Holland. Common gin is usually flavored with turpentine.
• intransitive verb Obs. or Archaic To begin; -- often followed by an infinitive without to. See gan.
• noun Contrivance; artifice; a trap; a snare.
• noun A machine for raising or moving heavy weights, consisting of a tripod formed of poles united at the top, with a windlass, pulleys, ropes, etc.
• noun (Mining) A hoisting drum, usually vertical; a whim.
• noun A machine for separating the seeds from cotton; a cotton gin.
• noun a simple form of tackle block, having one wheel, over which a rope runs; -- called also whip gin, rubbish pulley, and monkey wheel.
• noun a form of horse power for driving a cotton gin.
• noun the path of the horse when putting a gin in motion.
• noun a saw used in a cotton gin for drawing the fibers through the grid, leaving the seed in the hopper.
• noun (Mining) the drum of a whim.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• verb archaic To begin.
• noun obsolete A trick; a device or instrument.