daub
Americanverb (used with object)
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daubs,
present (3rd person singular)
-
daubed,
past participle, past
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daubing
present participle
-
to cover or coat with soft, adhesive matter, as plaster or mud.
to daub a canvas with paint; to daub stone walls with mud.
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to spread (plaster, mud, etc.) on or over something.
to daub plaster on a brick wall.
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to smear, soil, or defile.
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to apply, as paint or colors, unskillfully.
verb (used without object)
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daubs,
present (3rd person singular)
-
daubed,
past participle, past
-
daubing
present participle
-
to daub something.
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to paint unskillfully.
noun
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material, especially of an inferior kind, for daubing walls.
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something daubed on.
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an act of daubing.
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a crude, inartistic painting.
verb
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(tr) to smear or spread (paint, mud, etc), esp carelessly
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(tr) to cover or coat (with paint, plaster, etc) carelessly
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to paint (a picture) clumsily or badly
noun
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an unskilful or crude painting
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something daubed on, esp as a wall covering See also wattle and daub
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a smear (of paint, mud, etc)
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the act of daubing
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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daubsimple
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daubssimple
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have daubedperfect
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has daubedperfect
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am daubingprogressive
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are daubingprogressive
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is daubingprogressive
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have been daubingperfect progressive
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has been daubingperfect progressive
Past
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daubedsimple
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had daubedperfect
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was daubingprogressive
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were daubingprogressive
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had been daubingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of daub
1275–1325; (v.) Middle English dauben < Anglo-French, Old French dauber to whiten, paint < Latin dealbāre, equivalent to de-, prevocalic variant of dē- de- + albāre to whiten, derivative of albus white; (noun) late Middle English, derivative of the v.
Explanation
Whenever you smear something on a surface, you are daubing. Abstract Expressionists may have been able to daub a canvas with paint and sell it for millions, but you probably wouldn’t be so lucky. Daub can be used as a verb or as a noun, and is derived from the Old French debaur which comes from the Latin dealbare “to whiten.” It is also used to describe the process of covering a surface with an adhesive substance such as plaster, mud or grease. However, in its noun form, it means a smear of something. When you are ordering "a bagel with a smear," you could impress the guy at the deli by asking for "a daub" instead.
Vocabulary lists containing daub
Stroke of Genius: Words About Painting
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The Odyssey
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"Daedalus and Icarus"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Each death is a daub of paint on a vast canvas, but for the bereaved, each opens up a gaping chasm of grief.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 17, 2023
They're checking that their daub of Harry Kane, envisaged to occupy an entire wall, is complete.
From BBC ● May 28, 2023
Collage may indicate motion in Furey’s work, as in two pictures of dancers whose bodies are covered in patterns, whether more flower photos or rendered with line and daub.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 24, 2023
Celebrants daub each other with vividly colored powders.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 15, 2022
It is a warm winter day, as warm as a spring day in England, and around the fort, men are outside, working on everything from repairing wattle and daub walls to shucking corn.
From "Blood on the River" by Elisa Carbone
They are generally pleasant if bland landscapes, rendered in small, precise daubs of thick paint, and they begin to appear by the mid-1870s.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 24, 2025
He does all this with a combination of flat, saturated color, trompe l’oeil shadows and tiny, overlapping daubs of paint that split the difference between TV static and Ben-Day dots.
From New York Times ● Aug. 3, 2023
That incident aside, the only minor troubles Cathala can remember from his 28 years as an elected official are a few “very rare” trash fires and occasional daubs of graffiti.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 6, 2023
The algorithm-driven daubs of pastel color, although they never cohere into legible images, “explore the heritage of landscape painting,” he said.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 18, 2022
He was the painters idea of a man, simply daubs of paint, nothing more.
From "Son" by Lois Lowry
Martine Letterie, one of the campaign's organisers, said concentration camps were increasingly the target of vandalism, including far-right imagery daubed on sites.
From Barron's ● Mar. 19, 2026
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper banned the group under terrorism laws after paint was daubed on jets at RAF Brize Norton.
From BBC ● Sep. 1, 2025
The statue was also daubed with graffiti during Extinction Rebellion demonstrations in 2020, for which an 18-year-old protester was given a £200 fine and told to pay £1,200 in compensation.
From BBC ● May 6, 2025
With the campaign heading into the homestretch, Gluesenkamp Perez recently embarked on a RV tour of the 3rd Congressional District, down twisting two-lane roads, past farmland and forests daubed with red, yellow and orange.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2024
Chase winced as I daubed ointment on his raw cheek.
From "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson
In May, it claimed responsibility for the daubing of a US military plane in Ireland.
From BBC ● Jun. 20, 2025
Prosecutors are also investigating whether two Moldovans who admitted to daubing Stars of David on the walls of Parisian properties did so at the behest of someone abroad.
From Reuters ● Nov. 8, 2023
Several times he said that he had finished, but after pausing a few seconds, he would return to the canvas, daubing and smudging and spilling again.
From New York Times ● Feb. 5, 2022
In the Republic of Ireland police are investigating the daubing of black paint on a monument to Christopher Columbus in Galway - a gift from the city of Genoa.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 10, 2020
I wasn’t sure how he was going to get his boots back on, even after daubing the worst of the blisters with a paste made of baking soda.
From "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
