drip [OE] Drip is Old English but the slang use of the word to refer to a ‘feeble or dull person’, dates only from the middle of the 20th century. Drip had a variant drib [E16th], source of dribble [M16th]. Drib survives in the expression dribs and drabs [E19th], where drab has the sense of a small sum of money. A driblet meaning ‘a small drop or stream of liquid’ dates from the late 16th century when it also meant a ‘small sum of money, a small debt’. *Drop is related, and so is droop [ME].