blob
Americannoun
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blobs
plural
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a globule of liquid; bubble.
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a small lump, drop, splotch, or daub.
A blob of paint marred the surface.
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an object, especially a large one, having no distinct shape or definition.
a blob on the horizon.
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a dull, slow-witted, and uninteresting person.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a soft mass or drop, as of some viscous liquid
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a spot, dab, or blotch of colour, ink, etc
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a indistinct or shapeless form or object
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a slang word for condom
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of blob
1400–50; late Middle English; apparently expressive formation
Explanation
A blob is a spot, drop, or a shapeless mass of something, You can't just put blobs of paint on your canvas and call it art! Blob is often used interchangeably with glob or drop. You might top your apple pie with blobs of whipped cream, or put a blob of toothpaste on your toothbrush. And if your map appears to be just blobs of color, you might want to put your glasses on and look again. Blob first appeared as a verb in the 15th century, meaning "to mark with drops or granules," a close relation of bubble.
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:
Maybe the effort will amount to a lot of talk and the higher-education sector, as it’s terrifyingly known, will remain an expensive, unreformable blob.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026
"That cold isn't a kind of a get-out-of-jail-free card in terms of global warming. Some of the hot extremes can actually be exacerbated by this cold blob in the Atlantic," McCarthy said.
From Barron's ● Jun. 26, 2026
That had to be a whiff of flop-sweat from the Atlanta 1996 games’ blue blob mascot, something like an anthropomorphized teardrop, originally named Whatizit for the obvious reaction it generated, and later just Izzy.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2026
The company says the avatar, called Mico and resembling a blob with a smiley face, is "not a mascot, but an optional visual identity for Copilot".
From BBC ● May 13, 2026
Characterizing the similarities is as difficult as nailing down a blob of mercury, because exceptions abound and human behavior is always multifaceted.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Seen with the naked eye from the stern of our 40-foot tour boat, the dark blobs bobbing in the restless sea didn’t look like much.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026
“It’s like this that humanism itself gets swallowed up by nihilism,” he adds, concretizing that image in his movie with many scenes of environmental degradation realized as crawling blobs of death.
From Salon ● Jul. 22, 2026
"In this model, blobs of matter are chaotically being ejected from the surface of the bloated stars in an asymmetric fashion," Fuller says.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 21, 2026
The next day, he texted me a time and date with a drawing of what looked like giant floating lava-lamp blobs with two pairs of little feet sticking out from underneath.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 15, 2025
"Almost immediately, the ceiling began to whirl and became a multiple of spinning blobs," Jerrie recalled.
From "Women in Space" by Karen Bush Gibson
Over the previous 10 years of Test cricket, England's openers blobbed out 27 times in 121 matches, an average of one opener-duck per 4.5 Tests.
From BBC ● Dec. 31, 2021
If unable to find water, they blobbed, an entanglement that enabled them to survive out of water 10 times longer than individual worms.
From New York Times ● Oct. 25, 2021
Admittedly, as that student blobbed into the man I am today, I do wonder if the sedentary Lister was the wisest role model to choose.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 21, 2017
Revelers blobbed together, migrating as Rio’s winter twilight slipped in.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2016
Across her back her name was lettered crudely, blatantly, with the blobbed period where Johnny had his first mental shock of Sudden's changed attitude toward him.
From The Thunder Bird by B. M. Bower
Dr. Ding, who studies blobbing in the much-studied nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, described her C. elegans blobs as “strongly overlapping, like a bowl of spaghetti noodles.”
From New York Times ● Oct. 25, 2021
Maisie suggested painting and I started blobbing out pretty colours.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 31, 2017
Beside her on each side, both Ess and Loo were already scribbling and blobbing ink all over their stones.
From "Orphan Island" by Laurel Snyder
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.
