Now chiefly dial. Forms: 46 loby, -ie, 6 loubie, lowbie, -ye, 7 lubby, loubee, 7 looby. [Cf. LO sb., LUBBER, and the Teut. cognates mentioned under those words.] A lazy hulking fellow; a lout; an awkward, stupid, clownish person.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. Prol. 55. Grete lobyes and longe that loth were to swynke.
1529. S. Fish, Supplic. Beggars (E.E.T.S.), 14. Set these sturdy lobies a brode in the world to get theire liuing with their laboure.
a. 1500. Image Ipocr., IV. 129, in Skeltons Wks. (1843), II. 440. With priors of like place Great lobyes and lompes.
157787. Stanyhurst, Descr. Irel., 17/2, in Holinshed. Sir, you take me verie short, as long and as verie a lowbie as you imagine to make me.
1629. Symmer, Spir. Posie, I. ix. 30. What is the state then of the sluggard, the lazie Lizzard, and the luskish Lubby?
1681. T. Flatman, Heraclitus Ridens, No. 41 (1713), I. 15. This is but like a great Looby at School, who [etc.].
1696. Phillips, s.v. Lob, A great heavy sluggish Fellow is called a Lob, Loubee [1706 Looby], or Lob-cock.
1705. Hickeringill, Priest-cr., II. Pref. A iv. HomerAchilles makes a great strong Looby.
1713. Steele, Englishman, No. 24. 158. [These] are all convincing Arguments to a Country Looby.
1783. Johnson, in Boswell, 20 April. A savage, when he is hungry, will not carry about with him a looby of nine years old, who cannot help himself.
1821. Clare, Vill. Minstr., I. 159. A good-for-nought looby, he nettled me sore.
1845. Disraeli, Sybil (1863), 207. I went once and stayed a week at Lady Jenny Spinners to gain her looby of a son and his eighty thousand a-year.
1871. R. Ellis, trans. Catullus, xxii. 11. No ditcher eer appeared more rude, No looby coarser.
1872. Geo. Eliot, Middlem., xxxv. (1873), 213. While I tell the truth about loobies, my readers imagination need not be entirely excluded from an occupation with lords.
1886. in Elworthy, W. Somerset Word-bk.
b. attrib. and appositive, passing into adj. Also in comb. looby-like.
1582. Stanyhurst, Æneis, III. (Arb.), 91. Al wee see the giaunt, with his hole flock lowbylyke hagling.
1679. Ld. Rochester, Epigr. Ld. All-Pride, in Roxb. Ballads (1883), IV. 567. A plowmans looby meen, face all awry.
1687. Advise to Pestholders, ii. 1, in Third Collect. Poems (1689), 21/1. That Looby Duke.
1771. T. Hull, Sir W. Harrington (1797), I. 143. A country squire, of the looby kind.
1830. J. Bee, Ess., in Dram. Wks. Foote, I. (Cent.). This great, big, overgrown metropolis like a looby son who has outgrown his stamina.