Also 4–6 sobbe, 8–9 Sc. sab. [f. SOB v.1]
1. An act of sobbing; a convulsive catching of the breath under the influence of grief.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Troylus, IV. 375. Among hise sobbes and his sykes sore.
1530. Palsgr., 272/1. Sobbe that cometh in wepynge, sanglovt.
1563. Sackville, Induct. Mirr. Mag., lxxiii. The syghes, the sobbes, the diepe and deadly groane.
1583. W. Hunnis (title), Seuen Sobs of a Sorrowfull Soule for Sinne.
1621. T. Williamson, trans. Goulart’s Wise Vieillard, 46. The rich mans reuenewes are serued in with bitter sops and sobs to.
1712–4. Pope, Rape Lock, iv. 84. There she collects the force of female lungs, Sighs, sobs, and passions.
1798. Coleridge, Anc. Mar., VI. xv. And I with sobs did pray.
1821. Shelley, Ginevra, 181. Some melted into tears without a sob.
1863. Geo. Eliot, Romola, x. Her eyes had been swelling with tears again, and she ended with a sob.
b. A similar act or sound expressive of pain or exertion; an utterance resembling a sob.
c. 1480. Henryson, Pract. Medicyne, 55. Sevin sobbis of ane selche.
1784. Cowper, Task, III. 328. Detested sport,… That feeds upon the sobs … Of harmless nature.
1793. Wordsw., Evening Walk, 443. The tremulous sob of the complaining owl.
1810. Scott, Lady of L., II. xxv. Right up Ben-Lomond could he press, And not a sob his toil confess.
† c. An act, on the part of a horse, of recovering its wind after exertion; an opportunity allowed to it of doing this; hence fig., a rest or respite. Chiefly in the phr. to give … a sob. Obs.
1590. Shaks., Com. Err., IV. iii. 25. The man sir, that when gentlemen are tired giues them a sob, and rests them.
1593. G. Markham, Disc. Horsem., iii. I. If your Horse … cannot runne long with a winde, but if he want staies or sobbes. Ibid. (1607), Cavelarice, III. i. 8. These staies and recouerings of wind in the horse, my maisters, the northerne riders call Sobs.
1624. W. Browne, Brown’s 50 Years’ Practice, F 2. Euer yeeld willingly to your hand whensoeuer you see occasion to take him up to giue him a sobe, for that horse I hold to bee perfectly and truly mouthed.
a. 1658. Cleveland, To his Hermaphrodite, 44. But was he dead? Did not his Soul … break up House, like an expensive Lord, That gives his Purse a Sob, and lives at Board?
2. transf. A sound resembling that of a sob.
1765. Compl. Maltster & Brewer, 68. The first filling should not be until the sobs are quite down at the bung.
1820. Hogg, Sheph. Cal., vii. Goodnight to a’ younger brothers, puffings o’ love vows, and sabs o’ wind!
1883. Grove’s Dict. Music, III. 190/2. That species of musical sob produced by the repercussion of a prolonged note before the final cadence.
1897. Watts-Dunton, Coming of Love (1899), 9. With sea-sobs warning of the awakened wind.
3. Comb., as sob-broken, -like adjs.
1816. J. Wilson, City of Plague, Poems 1825, I. 197. Sob-broken words of prayer!
a. 1850. Rossetti, Dante & Circle, I. (1874), 72. A voice so sob-broken, So feeble with the agony of tears.
1857. Dufferin, Lett. High Lat. (ed. 3), 93. Wilson’s sob-like snores shook … the canvas walls.
1895. G. W. Edwards, in Century Mag., Aug., 571/2. It was panting for breath and occasionally making a sob-like sound.
