Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One of the young of bears, wolves, lions, pandas, or certain other animals.
  • noun A youth, especially one who is inexperienced, awkward, or ill-mannered.
  • noun A novice or learner, particularly in newspaper reporting.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A stall for cattle; a crib.
  • noun A chest; a bin.
  • noun A cupboard.
  • noun An abbreviation of cubic.
  • noun The young of certain quadrupeds, especially of the bear, fox, and wolf, also of the lion and tiger (more commonly whelp), and rarely of the dog and some others; a puppy; a whelp.
  • noun A coarse or uncouth boy or girl: in contempt or reprobation.
  • noun Hence An assistant to a physician or surgeon in a hospital.
  • To shut up or confine.
  • noun A lump; a heap; a confused mass.
  • To bring forth, as a cub or cubs.
  • Contemptuously, to bring forth young, as a woman.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A stall for cattle.
  • noun obsolete A cupboard.
  • verb To bring forth; -- said of animals, or in contempt, of persons.
  • noun A young animal, esp. the young of the bear.
  • noun Jocosely or in contempt, a boy or girl, esp. an awkward, rude, ill-mannered boy.
  • transitive verb obsolete To shut up or confine.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A young fox.
  • noun by extension The young of certain other animals, including the bear, wolf, lion and whale.
  • verb To give birth to cubs
  • verb To hunt fox cubs
  • verb obsolete To shut up or confine.
  • initialism cashed up bogan.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an awkward and inexperienced youth
  • verb give birth to cubs
  • noun the young of certain carnivorous mammals such as the bear or wolf or lion
  • noun a male child (a familiar term of address to a boy)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Origin unknown.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Origin unknown. Perhaps compare Old Norse (Icelandic) kobbi ("seal"), Old Irish cuib ("whelp").

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Examples

Comments

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  • Round these here parts, this means cashed-up bogan :P

    September 22, 2007

  • Like nouveau riche?

    September 25, 2007