[f. prec. sb.; cf. F. tuber (1489 in Littré).]
1. trans. To furnish or fit with a tube or tubes; to insert a tube in.
1828. Webster, Tube v., to furnish with a tube; as, to tube a well.
1840. Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl., III. 27/1. This … shaft … should be properly tubed with cast or sheet iron.
1867. N. Syd. Soc. Bienn. Retrosp. Med. & Surg., 1865–6, 247. The ease with which ‘tubing’ the larynx can be accomplished.
1886. H. S. Brown, Autobiog., x. (1887), 57. I was engaged … in tubing boilers.
2. To pass through or enclose in a tube; cf. tube yarn (TUBE sb. 12 b).
1863–98. Luce, Seamanship, App. A. 461. A recent improvement in the spinner tubes the yarn, rendering it smoother and … leaving little to be desired in the manufacture of rope.
3. intr. To travel by tube railway; also to tube it. colloq.
1902. Daily Chron., 31 Oct., 5/1. Yet my cherished hope was this—That under our Metropolis From end to end I’d tube it. Ibid. (1907), 1 June, 5/5. Shoppers can ‘tube’ to the West-end.
