Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A clumsy person.
- noun An inexperienced sailor; a landlubber.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A heavy, clumsy fellow; a sturdy, awkward dolt: applied especially by sailors to any one of the crew who is deficient in seamanship.
- To sail in a lubberly or clumsy manner.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A heavy, clumsy, or awkward fellow; a sturdy drone; a clown.
- noun a name given in contempt by sailors to a person who lives on land.
- noun (Zoöl.) a large, stout, clumsy grasshopper; esp.,
Brachystola magna , from the Rocky Mountain plains, andRomalea microptera , which is injurious to orange trees in Florida. - noun (Naut.) a hole in the floor of the “top,” next the mast, through which sailors may go aloft without going over the rim by the futtock shrouds. It is considered by seamen as only fit to be used by lubbers.
- noun a line or point in the compass case indicating the head of the ship, and consequently the course which the ship is steering.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun a
clumsy orlazy person - noun nautical an inexperienced or novice
sailor ; alandlubber
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an awkward stupid person
- noun an inexperienced sailor; a sailor on the first voyage
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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There is a good deal of what I call a lubber's fuss, parson, kept up on board a ship that shall be nameless, but which bears, about three leagues distant, broad off in the ocean, and which is lying to under a close-reefed maintopsail, a foretopmast-staysail, and foresail -- I call my hand a true one in mixing a can -- take another pull at the halyards!
The Pilot James Fenimore Cooper 1820
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A lubber is someone who does not go to sea, who stays on the land.
Archive 2008-09-01 Zenmomma 2008
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A lubber is someone who does not go to sea, who stays on the land.
Thursday Thirteen - The ARRRGHHHH! edition Zenmomma 2008
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She’d be swingin’ that lubber from the shaggin’ yardarm!
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Then the word lubber becomes one of the more fierce weapons in your arsenal of piratical lingo.
Archive 2008-09-01 Zenmomma 2008
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Then the word lubber becomes one of the more fierce weapons in your arsenal of piratical lingo.
Thursday Thirteen - The ARRRGHHHH! edition Zenmomma 2008
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A wind dead aft, blanketing more than half the canvas, is called a lubber's wind.
All Afloat A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways William Charles Henry Wood 1905
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The mate shouted to him in the full strength of his lungs to "Bear a hand and lay in off the yard," and unjustly berated him as a "lubber," while the poor fellow was tugging away, and working with might and main, to disengage his tail from the lift, in which he at length succeeded, but not without the aid of his jackknife.
Jack in the Forecastle or, Incidents in the Early Life of Hawser Martingale John Sherburne Sleeper
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And what I meant, '' he continued in a resentful tone, ` ` is that their republican god, which is neither stick nor stone, but seems to be some kind of lubber, has never given us seamen a chief like that one the soldiers have got ashore. ''
The Rover 1923
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The 'lubber' part of it was too clearly aimed at me to be mistaken; but I could not discover in it anything but nonsense all the way through to the end.
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