slob
Americannoun
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slobs
plural
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a slovenly or boorish person.
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Irish English. mud or ooze, especially a stretch of mud along a shore.
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Chiefly Canadian. sludge.
noun
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informal a slovenly, unattractive, and lazy person
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mire
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of slob
1770–80; < Irish slab ( a ) mud, mire
Explanation
A slob is someone who's messy or lazy. Tuck your shirt in and wash the dishes, you slob! You may think of your sister as a slob if she never cleans up after herself, leaving crumbs all over the house and clothes all over her room. It's a derogatory term, though, so think twice before you call her a slob out loud. An earlier meaning of the word was "muddy land," from the Irish slab, or "mud." The 1860s expression "slob of a man" led to the current definition of slob.
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:
And perhaps the best part of all: Nobody can call me a slob again—if I don’t backslide.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 8, 2026
I knew I was being absurd, a slob, a partial embarrassment, but I didn’t care.
From Salon ● Jan. 2, 2024
I’m far from a slob but I’m definitely not like her.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 27, 2022
It’s also a near-perfect way to tell someone you love that it’s time to stop living like a slob and do the dishes already.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 20, 2022
Finally, I go back to cleaning pool chairs, picking up Miss Celia’s movie magazines and tissues the slob leaves out here.
From "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett
“When I think of 20-year-old men, I think of open ramen containers, like, underwear, beds unmade and just like slobs basically. I have three younger brothers and I think of slobs,” she said.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 8, 2021
If it was the snobs against the slobs, I knew which side I was on.
From New York Times ● Aug. 5, 2019
Bart’s son “Brett” wrote an even more hurtful letter where he took pictures of our home during remodeling to illustrate the point that we are perpetual slobs.
From Slate ● Nov. 13, 2018
The sitcom starring Blake Anderson, Adam Devine and Anders Holm as working slobs ends its run after seven seasons.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 10, 2017
The only sounds were inside their heads — the moaning and wailing of the ghosts of all the poor slobs who had ever blundered onto Finsterwald’s property.
From "Maniac Magee" by Jerry Spinelli
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.
