lubber

English

Etymology

From Middle English, perhaps from Old French lobeor (“swindler”), or of Scandinavian origin, compare dialectal Swedish lubber.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈlʌbə(ɹ)/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

lubber (plural lubbers)

1. (archaic) A clumsy or lazy person.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:unskilled person

   • 1832 May, Thomas Carlyle, “[James] Boswell’s Life of [Samuel] Johnson”, in R[alph] W[aldo] E[merson], editor, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: […], volume III, Boston, Mass.: James Munroe and Company, published 1839, →OCLC, page 147:

     [T]hree of the boys, of whom Mr. Hector was sometimes one, used to come in the morning as his humble attendants, and carry him [Johnson] to school. […] The purfly, sand-blind lubber and blubber, with his open mouth, and face of bruised honeycomb; yet already dominant, imperial, irresistible!

2. (nautical) An inexperienced or novice sailor; a landlubber.
3. (Southern US) Common name for the eastern lubber grasshopper (Romalea microptera), likely after "a clumsy or lazy person"

Derived terms

• abbey-lubber
• lubber fiend
• lubberland
• lubber line
• lubber's hole

Translations

inexperienced sailor — see landlubber

Anagrams

• beblur, burble, rebulb, rubble