sobby

comparative sobbier · superlative sobbiest

1. Very sad; inclined to sob (weep with convulsive gasps).

   Every piece of furniture, from the threadbare sofa to the rickety center table, seems kind of sad and sobby.

   1917, Sewell Ford, Wilt Thou Torchy

   1 more example

   It began, 'Where is my wandering boy to-night?' and by the time she was through I was feeling so mushy and sobby that I put a five instead of a one into the plate by mistake.

   1903, George Horace Lorimer, Old Gorgon Graham

2. Resembling or characteristic of a sob.

   a sobby sound

comparative sobbier · superlative sobbiest

1. archaicThat has been sobbed (soaked); saturated with moisture.

   Nobody knows who he was; but no matter how wet the leaves, how sobby the twigs, no matter if there was no fire in a mile of the camp, that fellow could start one.

   1882, Carlton McCarthy, Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865

   2 more examples

   The original building of the house, and its blood-stained foundation stones; the dead who had died of the pestilence that had raged afterward; the bodies carted by scores and buried in the sobby earth of the graveyard, whose trees loomed up through the broken window; […]

   1887, Thomas Nelson Page, “No Haid Pawn”, in In Ole Virginia; Or, Marse Chan and Other Stories, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, pages 180–181

   The woman served him sullenly, placing some sobby biscuits and a piece of cold bacon on his plate, and pouring out a glass of buttermilk with a vicious thrust of the pitcher.

   1902, Ellen Glasgow, The Battle Ground