gob

plural gobs

1. countableA lump of soft or sticky material.

   1952, The Glass Industry, Volume 33, Ashlee Publishing Company, page 309, These inventors have discovered that gobs may be fed at widely spaced times without allowing the glass to flow during the interval but instead flushes out the chilled glass which accumulates during the dwell.

2. slanguncountableSaliva or phlegm.

   He spat a big ball of gob on to the pavement.

   Synonyms: saliva, spit, sputum

3. UScountableregionalA whoopie pie.
4. countablein pluraluncountableA large amount.

   gobs of money

   1 more example

   The story of “Strangers” is a cliché of well-to-do Manhattan: Husband makes gobs of money. Wife, despite her august educational pedigree, stays at home to raise the kids, relinquishing career and otherwise idling in the make-work realm of school boards and volunteering.

   2026 January 11, Alex Kuczynski, “Her Life Was an Old-Money Dream. It Collapsed in a Moment.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Synonyms: abundance, battalion, arseload, assload, bellyload, boatload, brimful, busload

present singular third person gobs · participle present gobbing · participle past gobbed · past gobbed

1. To gather into a lump.

   1997 March, William G. Tapply, How to Catch a Trout on a Sandwich, Field & Stream, page 60, I liked to gob up two or three worms on a snelled hook, pinch three or four split shot onto the leader, and plunk it into the dark water.

2. ambitransitiveslangTo spit, especially to spit phlegm.

plural gobs

1. CommonwealthIrelandUKslangThe mouth.First known use 16th c.

   Oi, you, shut your gob!

   3 more examples

   He′s always stuffing his gob with fast food.

   She's got such a gob on her – she's always gossiping about someone or other.

   Now washing you will be like washing a goth / All that black lipstick around their gobs

   2005, “Tango”, in Public Warning, performed by Lady Sovereign

   Synonyms: cakehole, mush, trap, bazoo, cakehole, chops, clam, clamshell

plural gobs

1. uncountablebusinessWaste material in old mine workings, goaf.

   This consisted in wheeling gob back to the most distant part of the stope and filling up the sets right up to the roof.

   1930, Engineering and Mining Journal, volume 130, page 330

present singular third person gobs · participle present gobbing · participle past gobbed · past gobbed

1. intransitivebusinessTo pack away waste material in order to support the walls of the mine.

plural gobs

1. USslanggovernmentA sailor.First known use 20th c.

   1944 November, Fitting the Gob to the Job, Popular Mechanics, page 18, For the first time in history, new warship crews are virtually “prefabricated” by modern methods of fitting the gob to the job.

   4 more examples

   Well I have taken the oath of allegiance for 4 years service anywhere in the world and am now a real 'gob' in the U. S. Navy.

   1918 October 22, Letter of Adlai Stevenson, quoted in John Bartlow Martin, Adlai Stevenson of Illinois: The Life of Adlai E. Stevenson (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976), page 53

   If it weren't for the Fleet I should scarcely be able to endure it. Gobs are always amusing, as you know.

   1928, Hart Crane, letter, 27 April

   Full-cut, dashing "gob" slacks with back pocket.

   1937, Stella Blum, Everyday Fashion of the Thirties as pictured in Sears Catalogs, published 1986, page 94

   1948 June, Fred B. Barton, Mending Broken Gobs, The Rotarian, page 22, Taking a safe average of 2,000 rehabilitated young gobs a year, that′s a total of 100,000 years of salvaged manhood, a target worth shooting at.

plural gobs · alternative gog