goober
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English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Via Gullah from Kongo nguba (“peanut”).
Pronunciation
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈɡuːbə/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈɡubɚ/
Audio (US): (file) - Rhymes: -uːbə(ɹ)
Noun
[edit]goober (plural goobers)
- (chiefly Southern US) A peanut.
- 1833 November 7, Louisville Public Advertiser:
- A few bags Gouber Pea, or Ground Pea
- 1834 May 24, Cherokee Phoenix, page 3:
- But he so seam I frade of he, I guess he steal my goober.
- (chiefly Southern US, dated slang) A Georgian or North Carolinian, particularly one from the pine forests of the Sandhills region.
- 1871, Maximilian Schele de Vere, Americanisms, page 57:
- The peanuts or earth-nuts known in North Carolina and the adjoining States as Goober peas, so that during the late Civil War a conscript from the so-called ‘piney woods’ of that State was apt to be nick-named a Goober.
- (chiefly US, childish slang) A foolish, simple, or amusingly silly person.
- 2012 August 5, Nathan Rabin, “The Simpsons (Classic): 'I Love Lisa'”, in A.V. Club[2]:
- For Ralph, any encouragement is too much. When Lisa gives Ralph a valentine bearing that locomotive pun that so affected The Simpsons’ showrunner, Ralph misinterprets the gesture as a genuine display of romantic interest rather than a gesture of pity from a thoughtful young geek to a friendless goober.
Synonyms
[edit]- (fool): See Thesaurus:fool, Thesaurus:idiot, Thesaurus:ignoramus, and Thesaurus:mentally deficient person
Derived terms
[edit]Verb
[edit]goober (third-person singular simple present goobers, present participle goobering, simple past and past participle goobered)
- (slang, intransitive) To drool or dribble.
- (slang, transitive) To drip or slather; to apply a gooey substance to a surface.
References
[edit]- “goober”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
- “goober, n.”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1900.
Anagrams
[edit]Categories:
- English terms borrowed from Gullah
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- English terms derived from Kongo
- English 2-syllable words
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- Rhymes:English/uːbə(ɹ)
- Rhymes:English/uːbə(ɹ)/2 syllables
- English lemmas
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- Southern US English
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- English dated terms
- English slang
- American English
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