a librettist who was a collaborator with Sir Arthur Sullivan in a famous series of comic operettas (1836-1911)
"W.S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan collaborated to create the beloved comic operetta The Pirates of Penzance."
English court physician noted for his studies of terrestrial magnetism (1540-1603)
"Gilbert's groundbreaking research on terrestrial magnetism laid the foundation for modern geomagnetism."
English navigator who in 1583 established in Newfoundland the first English colony in North America (1539-1583)
"Historians often cite Sir Humphrey Gilbert as the leader of the first English colony in North America, which he attempted to establish in Newfoundland in 1583."
United States architect who influenced the development of the skyscraper (1859-1934)
"The 1920s Chicago skyline was heavily shaped by the innovative designs of William Le Baron Jenney and other architects like Richard A. Gilbert, who pioneered new methods for building tall steel-frame structures."
The CGS unit of magnetomotive force equal to 0.7958 ampere-turns.
"The engineer calculated that a current of one gilbert flowing through the coil would produce the required magnetic field strength."
In plain English: A gilbert is an old-fashioned unit used to measure how strong a magnetic field is.
"I named my dog Gilbert after my favorite uncle."
Usage: Gilbert is an obsolete scientific term rarely used in everyday language, so it typically appears only when discussing historical physics texts or specific engineering contexts involving the CGS system. Modern readers should expect this word exclusively as a proper noun referring to the unit of magnetomotive force rather than any common descriptive meaning.
A male given name from the Germanic languages.
"Gilbert is a traditional male given name that originated in the Germanic languages."
The name Gilbert comes from the Old French form Gislebert, which was borrowed into English. It originally combined elements meaning "pledge" and "bright," giving it a sense of being a famous hostage or one who is renowned.