いーび【指】 : iibi | define meaning

Cognate with Gunma, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gifu, Yamanashi, Osaka, Shimane, Kagawa, Kochi, Nagasaki and Kumamoto いび ibi; Kagoshima ゆっ yuq; Shodon (Amami) qyiibi; Okinawan いーび iibi; and standard Japanese term ゆび【指】 yubi "finger, toe". The Ryukyuan forms suggest an initial vowel, and may therefore be related to the Old Japanese form および oyobi. Historically attested in the 和名類聚抄 Wamyō ruijushō under the spelling 於與比 (をよび woyobi or および oyobi). The term may ultimately stem from the nominal form of the verb およぶ【及ぶ】 oyobu "to reach; to extend".

Historical Ryukyuan attestations

• A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean, 1795-1798 (1804), by William Robert Broughton, records "Yecobee. The finger".
• Vocabulary of the language spoken at the Great Loo-Choo island in the Japan Sea (1818), by Herbert John Clifford, records "Finger. Eébee".
• Voyage of His Majesty's Ship Alceste: Along the Coast of Corea, to the Island of Lewchew, with an Account of Her Subsequent Shipwreck (1818), by John M'Leod, records "Finger. Ibec".
• Essay in Aid of a Grammmar and Dictionary of the Luchuan Language (1895), by Basil Hall Chamberlain, records "Ībi, a finger, a toe: fisha nu ībi, a toe; ībi-ganī, a ring. (Jap. yubi, vulg. ibi)".