dial. [See NEB, beak, bill.]

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  1.  A popular name for various black-billed birds, as the Crane and the Common Crow.

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1802.  G. Montagu, Ornith. Dict. (1831), 47.

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1837.  Macgillivray, Hist. Brit. Birds, I. 516.

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1884.  Chamb. Jrnl., 29 March, 204/2. Swarms of diminutive ‘black nebs.’

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  † 2.  Sc. A person charged with democratic sympathies at the time of the French Revolution. Obs.

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1816.  Scott, Antiq., vi. Take care, Monkbarns! we shall set you down among the black nebs by and by.

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1821.  Galt, Ann. Parish, 269 (Jam.). Many of the heritors considered me a black-neb.

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1864.  A. M‘Kay, Hist. Kilmarnock, 107.

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