tub

plural tubs

1. A flat-bottomed vessel, of width similar to or greater than its height, used for storing or packing things, or for washing things in.

   He bought a tub of lard to roast the potatoes in.

2. The contents or capacity of such a vessel.

   She added a tub of margarine to the stew.

3. A bathtub.

   Teach me to love my morning tub, / In waters cold to splash and rub; / O, grant my Turkish towel may flood / Its virtues through my soul and blood.

   1920, Theodore Sharpe, My Place in the Shade: And Various Verse, page 27

4. informalnauticalA slow-moving craft.

   The rest of the evening we had a fine west wind, which carried us on at near five knots an hour, as much as our lumbering old tub can possibly go.

   1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., page 166

   1 more example

   But, with any ships in the Baltic Fleet that were worth sending - and some that probably weren't worth sending anyway - having already been dispatched, this gave him the perfect excuse to start rounding up old, obsolete vessels which had been rejected in the first place as being old tubs and designated by some of the less-kind officers as the "Sink-by-Themselves Squadron".

   2019 March 13, Drachinifel, 24:52 from the start, in The Russian 2nd Pacific Squadron - Voyage of the Damned, archived from the original on 15 Oct 2022

5. derogatoryhumorousAny structure shaped like a tub, such as a certain old form of pulpit, a short broad boat, etc.

   All being took up and busied, some in pulpits and some in tubs, in the grand work of preaching and holding forth.

   1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London

6. A small cask.

   a tub of gin

7. Any of various historically designated quantities of goods to be sold by the tub (butter, oysters, etc).
8. businessA box or bucket in which coal or ore is sent up a shaft.

   The Winchburgh Shale Line is of 2 ft. 6 in. gauge. The surface trucks or tubs are cuboidal metal boxes mounted on unsprung four-wheeled chassis.

   1958 September 28, Anthony A. Vickers, “The Winchburgh Shale Line”, in Railway Magazine, page 613

9. obsoleteA sweating in a tub; a tub fast.

   tubs and baths; bring down rose-cheeked youth To the tub-fast and the diet

   c. 1605–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]

10. slangA corpulent or obese person.

    Donald tells him to be more realistic. Take those two girls over there, for example. One's a zitface and the other's a tub, so they'd be perfect for them.

    2003, Trey Ellis, Platitudes: & the New Black Aesthetic, page 139

11. automotiveThe bare body shell of an automobile (minus the doors, hood, trunk lid, fenders, etc.) which is lowered onto the chassis at the time of assembly, or in the case of modern unibody designed vehicles, is itself a monocoque around which the rest of the vehicle is built.

    Every street or race car McLaren has built since 1981 uses a carbon fiber tub. Now, McLaren will make them in-house.

    2017 February 10, Máté Petrány, McLaren Will Start Building its Own Carbon Fiber Tubs, archived from the original on 31 Aug 2023

present singular third person tubs · participle present tubbing · participle past tubbed · past tubbed

1. transitiveTo plant, set, or store in a tub.

   to tub a plant

2. ambitransitiveTo bathe in a tub.

   February 1, 1873, Meredith Townsend and Richard Holt Hutton (editors), "Change of Air and Scene", in The Spectator Don't we all "tub" in England?