[a. Irish and Gaelic clabar mud.]
1. dial. Mud. Hence Clabbery a., muddy.
1824. Mactaggart, Gallov. Encycl., Clabber, any soft dirty matter.
1880. Antrim & Down Gloss. ‘They clodded clabber at me.’ ‘Don’t put the dog into that clabbery hole.’
2. = BONNY-CLABBER, milk naturally curdled.
1634. Ford, Perkin Warbeck, III. ii. Healths in usquebaugh and bonny clabbore.
1828. Webster, Clabber or Bonny-clabber.
1860. Bartlett, Dict. Amer., s.v. Bonny-clabber.… It is sometimes called simply clabber.
1884. J. G. Bourke, Snake-Dance of Moquis, xxx. 354. We feasted heartily on mush-melons and clabber.
Hence Clabber v., intr. to curdle, as milk.
1880. in Webster, Suppl.
