Definitions

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

  • noun The mouth.
  • noun A small mass or lump.
  • noun Informal A large quantity.
  • noun A sailor.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The mouth.
  • noun In coal-mining, the refuse or waste material from the workings in a mine; attle. It is used to pack the goaves, so as to support the roof.
  • noun A mouthful; hence, a little mass or collection; a dab; a lump.
  • In coal-mining, to pack away refuse so as to get rid of it and at the same time to help to keep the workings from caving in.
  • To brag; boast.

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

  • noun colloq. Same as sailor.
  • noun (Mining) Same as goaf.
  • noun Low A little mass or collection; a small quantity; a mouthful.
  • noun Prov. Eng.or Low The mouth.

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

  • noun countable A lump of soft or sticky material.
  • noun countable, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, slang The mouth.
  • noun uncountable, slang Saliva or phlegm.
  • noun US, military, slang A sailor.
  • noun uncountable, mining Waste material in old mine workings, goaf.
  • verb To gather into a lump.
  • verb To spit, especially to spit phlegm.

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

  • noun informal terms for the mouth
  • noun a lump of slimy stuff
  • noun a man who serves as a sailor

Etymologies

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

[Perhaps from Scottish and Irish Gaelic.]

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

[Middle English gobbe, probably from Old French gobe, mouthful, from gober, to gulp, of Celtic origin.]

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

[Probably shortening of earlier gobshite, wad of expectorated chewing tobacco, sailor; see gobshite.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Irish and/or Scottish Gaelic gob ("beak, bill").

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Examples

  • So what I'm saying is there were vast parts of the mine with what we call gob that had had already been caved in.

    CNN Transcript Aug 10, 2007 2007

  • I remain gob smacked by todays parenting skills, attitudes, and its amazing adaptation.

    If I Name My Daughter ‘C.E.O,’ Will She Become One? - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com 2008

  • ` wool '; gab, Gaelic for ` mouth' (and hence ` chatter ') from which we also get the word gob (in England a popular form of candy for children is "gobstoppers"), and its derivatives gobble and goblet; galore, from the Gaelic gu

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol II No 4 1976

  • I’m gobsmacked that a smack in the gob is considered acceptable corporal punishment by about three in five Japanese!

    Japanese schools deteriorating due mainly to bullying and bad teachers 2008

  • As to the tory trolls ... the silver spoon in the gob is a bit off putting, as is the likes of Dale saying Timpson is "a successful man" whereas in fact his only real success is being born into a rich family.

    Timpson Towers: Not Wet Paper Bag in the Road 2008

  • This is the case also in Amos 7: 1; Nah. 3: 17, where the Hebrew word gob is used; and in Lev.

    Easton's Bible Dictionary M.G. Easton 1897

  • Once the mission starts, head over to Betty and agree to make Timmy cry by any method you wish (punching him in the gob is the quickest way) and head back to Betty for your next task.

    Computer And Video Games 2009

  • Once the mission starts, head over to Betty and agree to make Timmy cry by any method you wish (punching him in the gob is the quickest way) and head back to Betty for your next task.

    Computer And Video Games 2009

  • April 24th, 2010 10: 39 am ET why does the gop put spin on everything this president has already said? president obama has already told the american people this bill stops future bailouts. what is it that the repubs can not understand here? they need to help, lead or get out of the way. president obama was ELECTED to be our leader NOT the republicans that would love to keep us going backwards and ignore the state of disaster that bush left for the democrats to clean up. the gob is a lost cause an will never be the power sourse again for america. pat c.

    Hutchison says GOP standing firm on financial reform bill 2010

  • "...the silver spoon in the gob is a bit off putting..."

    Timpson Towers: Not Wet Paper Bag in the Road 2008

  • Ambit, however, has been powering the Grant Town plant primarily with off-site coal waste (called, hilariously, “gob”) that it buys from Manchin’s company, Enersystems.

    Coal Plant Won't Pay Its Rent, but Can Pay Joe Manchin The A.V. Club 2022

  • If you wanted to get out, you had to crawl back up the gate, anything up to two or three hundred yards, into the bank, then crawl through the gob, the wasteland left after the coal had been got out, and into the next bank and down their gate.

    Joe Kenyon · Working Underground · LRB 27 November 1997 Joe Kenyon 2020

Comments

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  • "In the first few days the dice usually had me express freely my own feelings toward my patients - to break, in effect, the cardinal rule of all psychotherapy: do not judge. I began overtly condemning every shabby little weakness I could find in my sniveling, cringing patients. Great gob of God, that was fun. If you remember that for four years I had been acting like a saint, understanding, forgiving and accepting all sorts of human folly, cruelty and nonsense; that I had been thus repressing every normal reactive impulse, you can imagine the joy with which I responded to the dice letting me call my patients sadists, idiots, bastards, sluts, cowards and latent cretins. Joy. I had found another island of joy."

    - 'The Dice Man', Luke Rhinehart.

    February 1, 2008

  • British slang for "mouth". Curiously, the Slovene word for an animal's mouth (normally translated as "muzzle", "snout", etc.), which is also used as a rather crude word for a person's mouth, is gobec, pronounced GOH-bets. Despite the similarity with the British word, there seems to be no etymological connection, as the Slovene word has a long Slavic pedigree and is related to the Russian word for "lip" (губа – guba) and the Slovene word for "mushroom" (goba), deriving, probably, from a root gǫb-, meaning "protuberance".

    August 14, 2008

  • And what of the English etmology? Anything to do with gobble? Or gab?

    Also UK slang for spit (noun and verb) or phlegm. E.g. 'Terry gobbed at me, so I lamped him.' or 'Watch it! You almost stepped in that lad's gob on the ground there'.

    August 14, 2008

  • Here's what the Online Etymological Dictionary says:

    "a mouthful, lump," c.1382, from O.Fr. gobe "mouthful, lump," from gober "gulp, swallow down," probably from Gaul. *gobbo- (cf. Ir. gob "mouth," Gael. gob "beak"). This Celtic source also seems to be root of gob "mouth" (c.1550), which is the first element in gob-stopper "a kind of large hard candy" (1928).

    August 15, 2008

  • "I found myself herded against a brick wall as they kept on spitting - on my face, my hair, my clothes, my arms. It was like rain, coming at me from all directions - hitting my recorder, my bag, my shoes, even my glasses. Big gobs of spit landed on me like heavy raindrops. I could even smell it as it fell on my face."

    - Anne Barker, Reporter feels mob's hate in the Holy City, abc.net.au, 6 July 2009.

    July 8, 2009

  • That abc.net.au site is a great source of headlines -

    Swan shoots down people's bank calls

    Hall leaves swans on big, bad note

    Penis falls off in fatal circumcision

    F1 boss says sorry for praising Hitler

    700yo child's skull washes up in Sydney

    Lords veto euthanasia travel motion

    Pope sinks teeth into financial crisis

    Half a woman found in suitcase

    Hotel shame puts Myles's Origin future in limbo

    July 8, 2009