Forms: 4 lobre, lobur, 6 lobor, loubber, lubbo(u)r, lub(b)ur, luber, lubbarre, 6–7 lubbar, 6– lubber. [The form may possibly belong to an adoption of OF. lobeor swindler, parasite, agent-n. f. lober to deceive, sponge upon, mock; but if so the sense has been altered by association with LOB sb.2 (cf. the Du. and Norw. cognates mentioned under that word).]
1. A big, clumsy, stupid fellow; esp. one who lives in idleness; a lout. Also in phr. † to play the lubber. In early quots. frequently applied to a monk (cf. ABBEY-LUBBER). Obs. exc. arch. or dial.
1361. Langl., P. Pl., A. Prol. 52. Grete lobres [MS. H. (c. 1400) loburs] and longe þat loþ weore to swynke Cloþeden hem in Copes.
1515. Barclay, Egloges, III. (1570), C ij b/2. Some be forgetfull,… Some craftles fooles, some proude and negligent, If thou chaunge some better for to haue, Thou voydest a lubber and hast agayne a knaue.
1530. [see LUBBER v.].
c. 1530. Ld. Berners, Arth. Lyt. Bryt., liv. (1814), 198. Two greate lubbers brought after hym the heed of the monster, in a great basket.
a. 1533. Frith, Disput. Purgat., A viij. That we shuld no lenger … be dyspoyled and robbed of a syght of sturdie lubbarres.
a. 1568. Ascham, Scholem., II. (Arb.), 88. They went to the Grammer schole, little children: they came from thence great lubbers: alwayes learning, and litle profiting.
1590. Nashe, 1st Pt. Pasquils Apol., Wks. (Grosart), I. 241. Will he neuer leaue to play the lubber? what a lazie lowtish kind of argument is this.
1605. Shaks., Lear, I. iv. 101. If you will measure your lubbers length againe, tarry.
1671. J. Webster, Metallogr., i. 18. Idle Lubbers that dare not adventure from the air of their Countries.
1750. Gray, Long Story (end). And so God save our noble King, And guard us from long-winded Lubbers.
1812. Sporting Mag., XL. 159. The sparks which flew from the pipe of a lubber who was blowing smoke and fire about at the door of the Angel.
1871. B. Taylor, Faust (1875), I. xix. 172. Now is the lubber tame!
1888. Berksh. Gloss., Lubber, or Lubber-yead, one very stupid indeed.
transf. c. 1826. Hood, in A. A. Watts, Life A. Watts (1884), II. 25. It … is but a hulking lubber of a paper.
b. esp. A sailor’s term for: A clumsy seaman; an unseamanlike fellow. (Cf. LAND-LUBBER.)
1579. Gosson, Sch. Abuse, 33 b. To lye wallowing like Lubbers in the Ship of the common wealth, crying Lord, Lord, when wee see the vessel toyle.
1748. Smollett, Rod. Rand., xxiv. He swore woundily at the lieutenant, and called him … swab and lubber.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1780), Cc ij. Afraid … of being stigmatized with the opprobrious epithet of lubber.
1824. Scott, Redgauntlet, ch. iii. The cowardly lubbers have all made sail.
1890. Besant, Armorel of Lyonesse, I. 39. Two lubbers! They ought not to be trusted with a boat.
† c. An inferior servant, drudge, scullion. Obs.
1538. Elyot, Dict., Mediastinus, a drudge or lubber, which doth in the howse all maner of vyle seruice, as swepe or clense the house, carie wodde to the kytchen, and other like drudgery.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Lubber, a mean Servant, that does all base Services in a House; a Drudge.
2. a. attrib. and appositive passing into adj. (In lubber lips perh. a different word; cf. blubber-lip.)
c. 1530. Hickscorner, 421 (Manly). Thou lubber Imagynacyon.
1599. Porter, Angry Wom. Abington, G. Sow vp your lubber lips.
1673. Dryden, Amboyna, Epil. 14. Venetians do not more uncouthly ride, Than did their Lubber-State Mankind bestride.
1730–46. Thomson, Autumn, 562. Astride The lubber Power in filthy triumph sits.
1832. Sir S. Ferguson, Forging Anchor, 57. The kraken’s back,… a lubber anchorage for sudden shallow’d miles.
1874. Tennyson, Vivien, 117. Then narrow court and lubber King, farewell!
1875. Browning, Inn Album, i. 7. Lubber prose o’ersprawls, And straddling stops the path from left to right.
1891. Hall Caine, Scapegoat, xxvii. His thick lubber lips working visibly.
b. Special comb.: lubber-grasshopper, a name for two large-bodied clumsy insects of the U.S.; (a) Brachystola magna, of the western plains; (b) Romalea microptera, of the Gulf States; lubber-head, a stupid person, a blockhead; hence lubber-headed adj. (E. D. D.); lubber’s line, mark, point Naut., a vertical line inside a compass-case, indicating the direction of the ship’s head; † lubberwort, the imaginary herb that produces laziness; also, a lubber. Also LUBBER FIEND, LUBBERLAND, LUBBER’S HOLE.
1885. Riverside Nat. Hist. (1888), II. 194. The *‘Lubber Grasshopper,’ or the Clumsy Locust, of the plains, Brachystola magna,… is … confined to the central portion of North America.
1847. Halliwell, *Lubber-head, a stupid fellow.
1849. Sidonia Sorc., II. 286. If … the thoughtless lubberhead, had not let the ring fall.
1858. Merc. Marine Mag., V. 34. The *lubber’s line of a compass.
1884. Knight, Dict. Mech., Suppl., *Lubber’s Mark (Nautical).
1840. Raper, Pract. Navig., § 142. 42. Care is taken to place the box so that *lubber’s point in the bowl, and the centre of the card, are in a line fore and aft, or parallel to the keel. But as lubber’s point deviates a little from its proper position when the ship is heeled over, seamen do not implicitly depend upon it, as indeed the name implies.
1881. Clark Russell, Sailor’s Sweeth., III. iv. 156. I … set the two compasses down with the lubber’s points exactly parallel.
1547. Boorde, Brev. Health, cli. (1557), 55 b. Whyles they do take theyr medecine [for the ‘fever lurden’] put no *Lubberworte into theyr potage.
1575. Laneham, Lett. (1871), 23. A loouely loober woorts, freklfaced, red headed, cleen trust in his dooblet.
