blob

See also: Blob and BLOB

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /blɒb/

  Rhymes: -ɒb

• (US) IPA^(key): /blɑb/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Homophone: BLOB

Etymology 1

From Middle English *blob (“attested in blobby”). Possibly onomatopoeic, similarly to bleb and blubber.

Noun

blob (plural blobs)

1. A shapeless or amorphous mass; a vague shape or amount, especially of a liquid or semisolid substance; a clump, group or collection that lacks definite shape.
   • 1869, Norman Lockyer et al., Nature:

     Only the outermost blob on either side in map 2 displays misalignment.

   • 1895, The Annual of the British School at Athens:

     It was a colourful vase with red and white hoops on the lid, and red bands above and below the main frieze. These bands also carry a metope pattern in white of triple lines and blobs, which can just be distinguished on the photographs.

   • 1922, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1, in Jacob's Room:

     But there, on the very top, is a hollow full of water, with a sandy bottom; with a blob of jelly stuck to the side, and some mussels.

2. (astronomy) A large cloud of gas.
   1. Ellipsis of extended Lyman-Alpha blob (a huge body of gas that may be the precursor to a galaxy).
3. (dialect) A bubble; a bleb.
4. A small freshwater fish (Cottus bairdii); the miller's thumb.
5. The partially inflated air bag used in the sport of blobbing.
6. (sports, slang) A score of zero.
   • 1925, Punch, volume 168, page 561:

     A gentleman named W. Shakespeare scored a blob in the Worcestershire v. Lancashire match. We understand that he got out because the ball pitched on a "damned spot."

Derived terms

• binary blob
• blobby
• blobfish
• blobitecture
• blobject
• blob-like
• bloblike
• blobocracy
• blobplot
• blobular
• glob
• mareblob
• moeblob
• on the blob
• water-blob

 

Translations

shapeless or amorphous mass

• Bulgarian: бучка (bg) (bučka), капчица (bg) (kapčica), топчица (bg) (topčica)
• Finnish: möykky (fi), kimpale (fi), klöntti (fi), kokkare (fi), klimppi (fi)
• French: pâte (fr), goutte (fr), tache (fr)
• Georgian: ბურთულა (burtula), ლაქა (laka)
• German: Klumpen (de) m
• Greek: άμορφη μάζα f (ámorfi máza)
• Irish: daba m
• Italian: grumo (it)
• Japanese: ブロッブ (burobbu)
• Portuguese: amorfo (pt)
• Romanian: please add this translation if you can
• Russian: ком (ru) (kom)
• Spanish: bodoque (es) m, mazacote (es) m, bloboque m, grumo (es) m
• Turkish: please add this translation if you can

See also

• cluster

Verb

blob (third-person singular simple present blobs, present participle blobbing, simple past and past participle blobbed)

1. (transitive) To drop in the form of a blob or blobs.
   • 1917, Edgar Wallace, chapter 6, in The Keepers of the King's Peace‎^[2]:

     Bones put the tiny crimson speck between his slides, blobbed a drop of oil on top, and focused the microscope.

   • 1957 October 7, “War of Nerves”, in Time:

     […] a cross has been burned during the night on Wechsler's lawn and a painted KKK blobbed across one wall of his home.

2. (transitive) To drop a blob or blobs onto; to cover with blobs.
   • 1941, Emily Carr, chapter 20, in Klee Wyck‎^[3]:

     She was beating something in a pail, beating it with her hands; her arms were blobbed with pink froth to the elbows.

   • 1959 December 7, “The Big Appel”, in Time‎^[4], archived from the original on 27 August 2013:

     Asked to do a mural in the coffee room of the Municipal Museum, Appel responded by blobbing all four walls and the ceiling with brilliant colors […]

3. (intransitive) To fall in the form of a blob or blobs.
   • 1964, A. S. Byatt, chapter 3, in The Shadow of the Sun, Harcourt, Brace & Co., published 1991, page 47:

     Caroline began to separate eggs, cracking them into unbelievably even halves, sliding the gold, round and elastic, from shell to shell, whilst the white hung, heavy, translucent, in thick sheets, and blobbed suddenly into her basin.

   • 2013, Marcus Berkmann, "Blood and gore of the real 'who dunnits'," Review of Silent Witnesses by Nigel McCrery, Daily Mail, 22 August, 2013, [5]

     […] whether the blood has splashed, or blobbed, or trickled, can reveal whether the victim was killed here or moved afterwards.

4. (intransitive, UK, colloquial) To spill sauce on oneself while eating.
5. (intransitive, slang) To relax idly and mindlessly; to veg out.
6. (intransitive) To catch eels by means of worms strung on a thread.

   Synonym: bob

   • 1937, The Argosy, volume 21, numbers 129-133, page 21:

     […] where he had surreptitiously tickled small trout, or openly "blobbed" for eels with worms threaded on to darning wool when the rains came, […]

Derived terms

• blob off
• blob out

Translations

to relax mindlessly

• Maori: whakapahoho

Etymology 2

Noun

blob (plural blobs)

1. (databases) Alternative spelling of BLOB

Anagrams

• Lobb