daub
Americanverb (used with object)
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daubs,
present (3rd person singular)
-
daubed,
past participle, past
-
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.
-
something daubed on.
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an act of daubing.
-
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
-
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)
-
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
-
had daubedperfect
-
was daubingprogressive
-
were daubingprogressive
-
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
Celebrants daub each other with vividly colored powders.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 15, 2022
Pour some coffee and daub a toasted muffin with planetary jam: It’s breakfast with the planets.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 26, 2022
It makes the stone houses drip and the wattle and daub houses look soggy.
From "Blood on the River" by Elisa Carbone
The painter adds, as grace notes, eight daubs of red, two no larger than a speck, to the prevailing gray.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 31, 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
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
Amid the long-running protests, people playing the character increasingly use different color face paint, including daubs of soot.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 13, 2021
He stared at the daubs and streaks and runnels of red, and this newest mystery, it wasn’t a pathway of light burning lines through his mind.
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
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
On the front steps, insults daubed in spray paint were directed at both Mayor Karen Bass and President Trump.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 9, 2025
It is next to a wall daubed with arrows pointing to the "emergency room" as well as "the road to death" - humour even darker than this room.
From BBC ● Dec. 17, 2024
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
And yet, I perceived that the young 24-06, denied most materials for expression, daubed pictures upon his master’s shoes.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
But two experts who spoke to the Task and Purpose website, are more sceptical about the effectiveness of daubing tanks with symbols.
From BBC ● Mar. 7, 2022
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
Bright paintings adorn many buildings in the neigbourhood and workers are busy daubing steps and stone walls in cheerful hues of yellow and orange.
From Reuters ● Nov. 10, 2021
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
When early civilizations started pressing reeds to clay tablets, carving figures in stone, and daubing ink on parchment and on papyrus, number systems had already been well-established.
From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife
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