gob
1 Americannoun
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a mass or lump.
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Informal. gobs, a large quantity.
gobs of money.
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Also called goaf. Mining. waste or barren material.
noun
noun
verb (used without object)
noun
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a lump or chunk, esp of a soft substance
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informal (often plural) a great quantity or amount
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mining
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waste material such as clay, shale, etc
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a worked-out area in a mine often packed with this
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a lump of molten glass used to make a piece of glassware
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informal a globule of spittle or saliva
verb
noun
noun
Etymology
Origin of gob1
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English gobbe, variant of gobet “a mouthful, lump”; see gobbet
Origin of gob2
An Americanism dating back to 1910–15; origin uncertain
Origin of gob3
First recorded in 1540–50; perhaps from Gaelic gob “mouth, beak”
Origin of gob4
First recorded in 1680–85; cf. gabble ( def. )
Explanation
A gob is a lump, blob, or chunk of something. A gob of pizza dough has to be flattened into a large circle before you can top it with sauce and cheese and bake it in the oven. A gob can be a hunk of something slimy or yucky — you might avoid stepping on an unidentified gob on the sidewalk. You can also eat a gob of cookie dough or mold a gob of clay. Roald Dahl introduced the Everlasting Gobstopper in his novel "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" as a form of candy that would last forever. A more old fashioned meaning of the word gob is "a sailor." While the origin of this kind of gob is a mystery, the "lump" meaning comes from gobbet, "fragment," rooted in the Old French gobet, "piece or mouthful."
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:
When he dismisses a contagion that killed millions as a “global gob of spit,” Mr. Tesson seems unfeeling and out of touch.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 11, 2025
The seagull with the bread in his gob was the best of it.
From BBC ● Aug. 31, 2025
But when such a person appears in a context where I'd least expect them – where, by all rights, they don't need to be – that is a real smack to the old gob.
From Salon ● Jun. 8, 2023
The most gob smacking is when the hunky dancer Campbell Caspary walks down a flight of stairs on his hands.
From New York Times ● Jan. 20, 2023
"Ain't the circus," he says, spitting a big gob on the step.
From "Freak The Mighty" by Rodman Philbrick
The results were huge canvases excitedly smeared, spattered, daubed, dribbled and gobbed with color in the shape of freewheeling overall designs, as if the artists had been playing with paints and got carried away.
From Time Magazine Archive
“I would’ve if it had been me . . . wouldn’t have wanted everyone watching. What if the goblet just gobbed you right back out again?”
From "Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire" by J. K. Rowling
I gobbed on the melted liquid, but I made a mess of it, the solder dripping down the tubing and the washer not on straight.
From "October Sky" by Homer Hickam
It's puzzle to tell: But he gobble an' gobbed an' he slobber and slobbed Until nottings was lef' of de stuff but de smell!
From By Trench and Trail in Song and Story by MacKay, Angus
"I've been here 10 years and he's gobbing off at me, driving standards," Marler says, describing his thoughts at the time.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2023
It wasn’t about snarling and shouting and gobbing in the street.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 5, 2019
And then you end up in Crawley with about 1,000 skinheads gobbing at you.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 3, 2019
Today "flobbing" or "gobbing" as it's colloquially known, is considered by many to be ugly, anti-social and potentially disease spreading.
From BBC ● Apr. 20, 2011
Younger generations who've come to consider the gobbing fans and safety pins of punk a bit passé have, in Crass, at least one largely unmined source of anarchy that doesn't seem played out.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 23, 2010
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.
