Now chiefly dial. Forms: 4–6 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.

1

1377.  Langl., P. Pl., B. Prol. 55. Grete lobyes and longe that loth were to swynke.

2

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.

3

a. 1500.  Image Ipocr., IV. 129, in Skelton’s Wks. (1843), II. 440. With priors of like place … Great lobyes and lompes.

4

1577–87.  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.

5

1629.  Symmer, Spir. Posie, I. ix. 30. What is the state then of the sluggard, the lazie Lizzard, and the luskish Lubby?

6

1681.  T. Flatman, Heraclitus Ridens, No. 41 (1713), I. 15. This is but like a great Looby at School, who [etc.].

7

1696.  Phillips, s.v. Lob, A great heavy sluggish Fellow is called a Lob, Loubee [1706 Looby], or Lob-cock.

8

1705.  Hickeringill, Priest-cr., II. Pref. A iv. Homer—Achilles makes a great strong Looby.

9

1713.  Steele, Englishman, No. 24. 158. [These] are all convincing Arguments to a Country Looby.

10

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.

11

1821.  Clare, Vill. Minstr., I. 159. A good-for-nought looby, he nettled me sore.

12

1845.  Disraeli, Sybil (1863), 207. I went once and stayed a week at Lady Jenny Spinner’s to gain her looby of a son and his eighty thousand a-year.

13

1871.  R. Ellis, trans. Catullus, xxii. 11. No ditcher e’er appeared more rude, No looby coarser.

14

1872.  Geo. Eliot, Middlem., xxxv. (1873), 213. While I tell the truth about loobies, my reader’s imagination need not be entirely excluded from an occupation with lords.

15

1886.  in Elworthy, W. Somerset Word-bk.

16

  b.  attrib. and appositive, passing into adj. Also in comb. looby-like.

17

1582.  Stanyhurst, Æneis, III. (Arb.), 91. Al wee see the giaunt, with his hole flock lowbylyke hagling.

18

1679.  Ld. Rochester, Epigr. Ld. All-Pride, in Roxb. Ballads (1883), IV. 567. A plowman’s looby meen, face all awry.

19

1687.  Advise to Pestholders, ii. 1, in Third Collect. Poems (1689), 21/1. That Looby Duke.

20

1771.  T. Hull, Sir W. Harrington (1797), I. 143. A country squire, of the looby kind.

21

1830.  J. Bee, Ess., in Dram. Wks. Foote, I. (Cent.). This great, big, overgrown metropolis … like a looby son who has outgrown his stamina.

22