blubber

[bluhb-er]

noun

1. Zoology.,  the fat layer between the skin and muscle of whales and other cetaceans, from which oil is made.

2. excess body fat.

3. an act of weeping noisily and without restraint.

verb (used without object)

1. to weep noisily and without restraint.

   Stop blubbering and tell me what's wrong.

verb (used with object)

1. to say, especially incoherently, while weeping.

   The child seemed to be blubbering something about a lost ring.

2. to contort or disfigure (the features) with weeping.

adjective

1. disfigured with blubbering; blubbery.

   She dried her blubber eyes.

2. fatty; swollen; puffed out (usually used in combination).

   thick, blubber lips; blubber-faced.

blubber

/ ˈblʌbə /

verb

1. to sob without restraint

2. to utter while sobbing

3. (tr) to make (the face) wet and swollen or disfigured by crying

noun

1. a thick insulating layer of fatty tissue below the skin of aquatic mammals such as the whale: used by man as a source of oil

2. informal,  excessive and flabby body fat

3. the act or an instance of weeping without restraint

4. an informal name for jellyfish

adjective

1. (often in combination) swollen or fleshy

   blubber-faced

   blubber-lips

blubber

1. The thick layer of fat between the skin and the muscle layers of whales and other marine mammals. It insulates the animal from heat loss and serves as a food reserve.

Other Word Forms

• blubberer noun
• blubberingly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of blubber¹

1250–1300; Middle English bluber bubble, bubbling water, entrails, whale oil; apparently imitative

Word History and Origins

Origin of blubber¹

C12: perhaps from Low German blubbern to _bubble , of imitative origin

Example Sentences

Keep a box of tissues close by: I was a blubbering mess two minutes in, when Hanks follows Murray’s cold open with one of the eulogies from Candy’s funeral.

Read more on Salon

Dolphins continue to be poached for their flesh and blubber, from which oil is extracted to use as fishing bait.

Read more on BBC

A more definitive answer, however, will have to wait until he receives results from blood, blubber and tissue samples collected from the whale.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Their evidence included finding stone harpoon points that hadn’t been used since the mid-1800s embedded in the blubber of whales recently killed by traditional whalers.

Read more on Salon

The country is one of only three in the world that still allow whaling - where whales are hunted for their meat, blubber and oil - along with Japan and Norway.

Read more on BBC

Related Words

• bawl 
• cry