Meanings
looby1
plural loobies
- archaicdialectalA large and awkward or clumsy person; an oaf.
Thus while I tell the truth about loobies, my reader's imagination need not be entirely excluded from an occupation with lords […].
1872, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Book IV, chapter 351 more example
‘Depend upon it, Sir, a savage, when he is hungry, will not carry about with him a looby of nine years old, who cannot help himself.’
1791, James Boswell, Life of Johnson, Oxford, published 2008, page 1227
Looby2
Origin
looby · noun
Uncertain. Perhaps from lob (“a large piece, lump”) + -y.
Full word history & related roots →Looby · proper noun
- IrishÓ Lúbaigh“descendant of Lúbach”
- EnglishLooby
Reduced Anglicized form of Irish Ó Lúbaigh (“descendant of Lúbach”), a byname originally applied to a cunning person, from lúbach (“looped, coiled; crafty, tricky”).
More words from Irish
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with looby
All rhymes →Anagrams
Cite this entry
looby. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/looby
“looby.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/looby. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “looby,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/looby.
Source: looby on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.