daub

plural daubs

1. countableuncountableExcrement or clay used as a bonding material in construction.
2. countableuncountableA soft coating of mud, plaster, etc.
3. countableuncountableA crude or amateurish painting.

   Ah, but what if he penned what in the art schools they call an 'artist's statement' wherein he explained the relation of his gibberish or his daubs to the mainstream of art or writing?

   2008, Joseph Agassi, Ian Charles Jarvie, A Critical Rationalist Aesthetics, page 16

   1 more example

   But such pictures are rare indeed in this artist's gallery. Landscapes he hardly attempted, and his portraits are daubs, lacking all the individuality, life, and colour. In that of Moses, in which he laboured most, the great leader is little more than a lay-figure rigged out to distribute ecclesiastical upholstery and millinery.

   1918, James George Frazer, Folk-Lore In The Old Testament, volume 1, page 134

present singular third person daubs · participle present daubing · participle past daubed · past daubed

1. intransitivetransitiveTo apply (something) to a surface in hasty or crude strokes.

   The artist just seemed to daub on paint at random and suddenly there was a painting.

   5 more examples

   […] she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch […]

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 2:3

   […] Mrs. Gibson could not well come up to the girl’s bedroom every night and see that she daubed her face and neck over with the cosmetics so carefully provided for her.

   1864 August – 1866 January, [Elizabeth] Gaskell, “The Bride at Home”, in Wives and Daughters. An Every-day Story. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], published 1866, →OCLC, page 180

   An artist friend fitted her out with his castoff palettes, brushes, and colors, and she daubed away, producing pastoral and marine views such as were never seen on land or sea.

   1868–1869, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, Little Women: […], (please specify |part=1 or 2), Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC

   […] as he watched, [the motorcar] came up the snow-covered road, green and brown painted, in broken patches of daubed color, the windows blued over so that you could not see in […]

   1940, Ernest Hemingway, chapter 15, in For Whom the Bell Tolls, London: Jonathan Cape, page 185

   Blood was running to her shoe, and her stocking was torn in a jagged hole. […] she wet toilet paper and daubed until the red was gone from her stocking, but the red kept coming.

   1952, Patricia Highsmith, chapter 3, in The Price of Salt, Norton, published 2004, page 39

   Synonyms: apply, coat, cover, plaster, smear

2. transitiveTo paint (a picture, etc.) in a coarse or unskilful manner.

   […] a lame, imperfect Piece, rudely daub’d over with too little Reflection and too much haste.

   1695, Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy, translated by John Dryden, Observations on the Art of Painting, London: W. Rogers, page 201

   3 more examples

   If a Picture is daub’d with many bright and glaring Colours, the vulgar Eye admires it as an excellent Piece […]

   1725, Isaac Watts, chapter 3, in Logick: Or, The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry after Truth, […], 2nd edition, London: […] John Clark and Richard Hett, […], Emanuel Matthews, […], and Richard Ford, […], published 1726, →OCLC, part II (Of Judgment and Proposition), section 1, page 189

   1826, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, An Essay on Mind, Book I, in The Earlier Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1826-1833, London: Bartholomew Robson, 1878, pp. 25-26, If some gay picture, vilely daubed, were seen With grass of azure, and a sky of green, Th’impatient laughter we’d suppress in vain, And deem the painter jesting, or insane.

   […] this stretch of the shore is still filthy with trash; high-school gangs still daub huge scandalous words on its beach-wall, and seashells are still less easy to find here than discarded rubbers.

   1964, Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man, Vintage, published 2010

3. obsoletetransitiveTo cover with a specious or deceitful exterior; to disguise; to conceal.

   So smooth he daub’d his vice with show of virtue,

   c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene v]

   1 more example

   No flattering praises daub my stone, My frailties and my faults to hide;

   1820, John Clare, “The Universal Epitaph”, in Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery, London: Taylor & Hessey, page 91

4. obsoletetransitiveTo flatter excessively or grossly.

   I can safely say, however, that without any daubing at all, I am, very sincerely, Your very affectionate, humble servant,

   1766, Tobias Smollett, Travels through France and Italy, London: R. Baldwin, Volume 2, Letter 28, p. 73

5. obsoletetransitiveTo put on without taste; to deck gaudily.

   […] whenever they came in order to pay those islanders a visit, [they] were generally very well dressed, and very poor, daubed with lace, but all the gilding on the outside.

   1762, Oliver Goldsmith, The Citizen of the World, London, Volume 1, Letter 50, p. 224

   1 more example

   1697, John Dryden, “On the Three Dukes killing the Beadle on Sunday Morning, Febr. the 26th, 1670/1” in John Denham et al., Poems on affairs of state from the time of Oliver Cromwell, to the abdication of K. James the Second, London, p. 148, Yet shall Whitehall the Innocent, the Good, See these men dance all daub’d with Lace and Blood.

6. transitivebingoTo mark spots on a bingo card, using a dauber.

plural Daubs

1. A surname.