Meanings
dob1
present singular third person dobs · participle present dobbing · participle past dobbed · past dobbed
- AustraliaNew ZealandintransitiveslangTo report a person to someone in authority for a wrongdoing. (For transitive forms see dob in, dob on.)
Students often claimed that an act of informing was just ‘dobbing as a joke’ and therefore ‘not really dobbing’.
1983, James Macpherson, The Feral Classroom, page 1071 more example
Alex was concerned that if others thought he had dobbed, things would get even worse for him. Dobbing was the worst thing a student could do.
2006, Ian Findley, Shared Responsibility: Beating Bullying in Australian Schools, page 67 - Northern IrelandambitransitiveslangTo play truant.
Parents were taken to court 189 times in the Western region over the past five years because their children were ‘dobbing’ school.¶ The Education Minister John O’Dowd revealed the number of parents taken to court due to children being absent from school […]
2015 October 11, Kevin Mullan, “189 parents in dock for ‘dobbing’”, in Londonderry Sentinel
dob2
plural dobs
- A small amount of something, especially paste.
Put a dob of butter on the potato, please.
1 more example
1903, Rudyard Kipling, The Tabu Tale, in Just So Stories (in the U.S. Scribner edition, but omitted from most British editions), ‘Consequence will be, O Tegumai,’ said the Head Chief, ‘that we will make them understand it with sticks and stinging-nettles and dobs of mud; and if that doesn't teach them, we'll draw fine, freehand Tribal patterns on their backs with the cutty edges of mussel-shells. […] ’
dob3
dob4
present singular third person dobs · participle present dobbing · participle past dobbed · past dobbed
- humorousintransitivesometimesIn the scouting movement, to chant dob to indicate that one will do one's best to follow the scouting laws.
I used to get through the dibbing and dobbing all right but during the howling I usually rolled over backwards.
2009, Clive James, Unreliable Memoirs, page 541 more example
Why were there 212 fatalities at the first boy scout camp? There wasn't much dybbing and dobbing at Robert Baden-Powell's first scout camp as the camp in question was in Mafeking and took place during a particularly nasty siege[…]
2009, Justin Pollard, The Interesting Bits
DOB5
- abbreviationinitialismInitialism of Daughters of Bilitis The first organized and successful lesbian liberation organization in the United States.
- abbreviationinitialismInitialism of 2 or 5-Dimethoxy-4-bromoamphetamine A psychedelic drug similar to 2C-B.
DoB6
plural DoBs
- abbreviationinitialismInitialism of date of birth.
A-SSN verified on name, DoB and sex
1995, Code of Federal Regulations, the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration, page 5545 more examples
For those who treat horoscopes as gospel truth, the Supreme Court had dished out a bitter truth - the date of birth (DoB) of a person entered in a horoscope can never be given primacy over the DoB mentioned in his School Leaving Certificate (SLC). “Horoscope is a very weak material to prove age of a person,” a Bench comprising Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice S H Kapadia on Mar 14 said allowing an appeal of Punjab government challenging a High Court order ruling in favour of a person who had relied on the horoscope for proving his DoB.
2005, Data India, Press Institute of India, page 233, columns 1–2DoB = BIRTH/BAPTISM: Where possible we have given a precise date of birth or baptism, usually taken from the Barra Parish Register.
2005, Keith Branigan, J. M. Bumsted, From Clan to Clearance: History and Archaeology on the Isle of Barra, c. 850–1850 AD, Oxford: Oxbow Books, →ISBN, page 188Name / Address / City / ZIP / DoB / Sex / Education
2011, Sabrina De Capitani di Vimercati, Sara Foresti, Giovanni Livraga, “Privacy in Data Publishing”, in Joaquin Garcia-Alfaro, Guillermo Navarro-Arribas, Ana Cavalli, Jean Leneutre, editors, Data Privacy Management and Autonomous Spontaneous Security: 5th International Workshop, DPM 2010 and 3rd International Workshop, SETOP, Athens, Greece, September 23, 2010, Revised Selected Papers, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, →ISBN, section “Keynote Talks”, page 10ID / First Name / Last Name / DoB / Gender / City / Country
2013, Hasso Plattner, A Course in In-Memory Data Management: The Inner Mechanics of In-Memory Databases, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, →ISBN, page 65name / DoB / position / matches / goals
2015, Claus Thorn Ekstrom, Helle Sørensen, Introduction to Statistical Data Analysis for the Life Sciences, 2nd edition, CRC Press, →ISBN, page 414 - abbreviationinitialismengineeringInitialism of degree of bending.
1 more example
Through-the-thickness stress distribution characterized by the degree of bending (DoB) has a major effect on the fatigue behavior of tubular joints commonly found in steel offshore structures. The determination of DoB values is essential for improving the accuracy of fatigue life estimation using the stress-life (S–N) method […]
2020 February, Hamid Ahmadi, Esmaeil Zavvar, “Degree of bending (DoB) in offshore tubular KT-joints under the axial, in-plane bending (IPB), and out-of-plane bending (OPB) loads”, in Applied Ocean Research, volume 95, article number 102015, →DOI, page 1
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
dob · verb
- Middle Englishdobben
- Englishdob
Uncertain. Possibly from Middle English dobben.
More words from Middle English
Full word history & related roots →dob · verb
Short for do our best. dyb (or dib) and dob were used as abbreviated forms of do your best and do our best in certain Scout chants.
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with dob
All rhymes →Anagrams
Cite this entry
dob. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dob
“dob.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dob. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “dob,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dob.
Source: dob on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.