tubby

American  

[tuhb-ee] / ˈtʌb i /

adjective

tubbier, tubbiest

1. short and fat.

   a tubby child.

2. having a dull, thumping sound; lacking resonance.

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tubby British  

/ ˈtʌbɪ /

adjective

1. plump

2. shaped like a tub

3. rare having little resonance

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Other Word Forms

• tubbiness
  noun

Etymology

Origin of tubby

First recorded in 1800–10; tub + -y ¹

Explanation

To be tubby is to be round and plump, and maybe a bit on the short side. Many cartoon characters, including Porky Pig, Garfield, and Homer Simpson, are a little tubby. The informal noun tubby is usually used to describe a person, and as a result it's almost always offensive — it's just generally bad form to comment on the shape of someone's body! You might, however, describe your plump little kitten as tubby or mold a tubby figure out of clay. Tubby, thought to come from "shaped like a tub," has been in use since the 1890s.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

tubby tubbier tubbiest

Since 1978, cartoonist Jim Davis has explored the quotidian dramas of pet ownership via the daily travails of beleaguered Jon Arbuckle, his eager dog, Odie, and the titular tubby orange tabby, Garfield.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 24, 2024

Of all the things to say about Gaetz … tubby?

From Slate ● Apr. 18, 2024

Throughout their journey, they’re beset by weird creatures familiar to “D&D” players: a tubby fire-breathing dragon and a beast called an owlbear.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 28, 2023

“A little big boy dance. A little tubby tummy thing.”

From Washington Post ● Aug. 20, 2017

It was hard for me to imagine Call’s tubby little grandmother taking a switch to a large fifteen-year-old boy, but I held my peace.

From "Jacob Have I Loved" by Katherine Paterson

The singers Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson and Jennifer Hudson are showing off newly slender bodies to entice tubbier folks to follow their example.

From New York Times ● Dec. 15, 2011

Though the Chairman was tubbier and more paternal, he was just as embalmed by celebrity as Jackie Kennedy or Elvis Presley, Warhol's earlier subjects.

From Time Magazine Archive

Slick and smear it over and leave it sounding sicklier and tubbier and more generally disgusting than ever.

From Mary Wollaston by Webster, Henry Kitchell

The other was a smaller and tubbier man, pleasant to look upon, a man evidently who lived for and by good eating and drinking.

From Patsy by Crockett, S. R. (Samuel Rutherford)

Broad of beam, heavily sparred, with high freeboard and bluff, Dutchy bow, the Uncle Toby was the slowest, tubbiest, safest, and most fool-proof schooner David Grief possessed.

From A Son Of The Sun by London, Jack