Scobs
noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Raspings of wood, ivory, hartshorn, metals, or other hard substance. plural, plural-only
"This was so much the case in antient times that the floor of the dining room was generally covered with scobs or sawdust to absorb what Seneca calls the purgamenta et jactus cænantium, the “excretions and discharges of the guests." The scobs became at length a point of luxury. Heliogabalus ordered the portico to be strewed in lieu of scobs with gold and silver dust, and lamented that he could not find amber enough for that purpose."
- 2 plural of scob form-of, plural
- 3 The dross of metals. plural, plural-only
"The scobs thereof Diose, helps those that are hurt by quicksilver, taken inwardly, or used outwardly, it attracting to it selfe"
- 1 third-person singular simple present indicative of scob form-of, indicative, present, singular, third-person
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"This was so much the case in antient times that the floor of the dining room was generally covered with scobs or sawdust to absorb what Seneca calls the purgamenta et jactus cænantium, the “excretions and discharges of the guests." The scobs became at length a point of luxury. Heliogabalus ordered the portico to be strewed in lieu of scobs with gold and silver dust, and lamented that he could not find amber enough for that purpose."
Etymology
From Latin scobs, or scobis, from scabere (“to scrape”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.