slubber

English

Etymology

Compare Danish slubbre (“to swallow, to sup up”), and English slabber.

Verb

slubber (third-person singular simple present slubbers, present participle slubbering, simple past and past participle slubbered)

1. To do hastily, imperfectly, or sloppily.
   • 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act II Scene 8

     [...] he [Antonio] answer'd, "Do not so;

     Slubber not business for my sake, Bassanio,

     But stay the very riping of the time;

     [...]

2. To daub; to stain; to cover carelessly.
   • Milton

     There is no art that hath more […] slubbered with aphorisming pedantry than the art of policy.

3. To slobber.
   • 1914, Jack London, Mutiny of the Elsinore, chapter 33:

     It grows colder, and grayer, and penguins cry in the night, and huge amphibians moan and slubber.

Noun

slubber (plural slubbers)

1. A person who, or a machine which, slubs.

References

• Oxford English Dictionary, second edition (1989)
• Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary (1987-1996)

Anagrams

• burbles, lubbers, rebulbs, rubbles