clabber
Americannoun
verb (used without object)
Regionalisms
Clabber has many regional variations, including bonnyclabber and its variant bonnyclapper in the Northern and Midland U.S., thick milk in the Hudson River Valley and North Midland U.S., lobber and its variant lobbered milk in the Inland North, clobber in the South Midland and Southern U.S., and crud in some widely scattered areas.
Etymology
Origin of clabber
1625–35; < Irish clabar short for bainne clabair bonnyclabber
Explanation
Clabber is raw milk that's curdled: it's soured and thickened. It may sound gross, but clabber is edible. This noun for naturally clotted milk has all but vanished from modern English — perhaps a victim of home refrigerators and supermarket shopping. It's the only English descendant of Irish claba, which means "thick." Clabber is certainly thick, and it's also quite chunky. The milk part — in the form of the Irish word bainne — was present in an earlier form of the term, bonnie-clabber. Clabber often consists of buttermilk, and it has frequently been a breakfast food.
Vocabulary lists containing clabber
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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.
The family ate clabber, corn bread, grits, and vegetables that they grew in their garden.
From The New Yorker • Apr. 17, 2017
He described the unwillingness of politicians to leave office as, 'You cain't cut a feller offen his clabber.'
From Time Magazine Archive
The show was just another dipperful of clabber out of Kraft Theater's antique churn.
From Time Magazine Archive
The Keyes literary style, which is as smooth as clabber, is to hook connective tissue to a lavish collection of cliches.
From Time Magazine Archive
“Why didn’t you bring in the milk? It’s probably clabber by now.”
From "Go Set a Watchman: A Novel" by Harper Lee
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.
