Gob

//ɡɒb// noun, verb, slang

noun, verb, slang ·Common ·Middle school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A lump of soft or sticky material. countable

    "1952, The Glass Industry, Volume 33, Ashlee Publishing Company, page 309, These inventors have discovered that gobs may be fed at widely spaced times without allowing the glass to flow during the interval but instead flushes out the chilled glass which accumulates during the dwell."

  2. 2
    The mouth. Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, slang

    "He′s always stuffing his gob with fast food."

  3. 3
    Waste material in old mine workings, goaf. uncountable

    "This consisted in wheeling gob back to the most distant part of the stope and filling up the sets right up to the roof."

  4. 4
    A sailor. US, slang

    "Well I have taken the oath of allegiance for 4 years service anywhere in the world and am now a real 'gob' in the U. S. Navy."

  5. 5
    (nautical) empty-gloss, no-gloss

    "To save having to enter the locks at a crawl — not seamanlike in the strong cross-winds we often experienced ― I rigged a quarter-rope as described for stopping her, in addition to a gob-rope that I could immediately haul on to convert the quarter rope into a conventional stern line to hold her alongside after we had stopped."

Show 5 more definitions
  1. 6
    informal terms for the mouth wordnet
  2. 7
    Saliva or phlegm. slang, uncountable

    "He spat a big ball of gob on to the pavement."

  3. 8
    a lump of slimy stuff wordnet
  4. 9
    A whoopie pie. US, countable, regional
  5. 10
    a man who serves as a sailor wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To gather into a lump.

    "1997 March, William G. Tapply, How to Catch a Trout on a Sandwich, Field & Stream, page 60, I liked to gob up two or three worms on a snelled hook, pinch three or four split shot onto the leader, and plunk it into the dark water."

  2. 2
    To pack away waste material in order to support the walls of the mine. intransitive
  3. 3
    To spit, especially to spit phlegm. ambitransitive, slang

Example

More examples

"If only you'd kept your gob shut, Tom!"

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English gobbe (also Middle English gobet), from Old French gobet, gobe (“lump, mouthful”), from Transalpine Gaulish *gobbo- (“neb, muzzle”).

Etymology 2

Probably from Irish gob, Scottish Gaelic gob (“beak, mouth”).

Etymology 3

Back-formation from gobbing, or a specified use of Etymology 1, above.

Etymology 4

Shortened from gobby or gobshite.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.