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

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Etymology

Origin of tubby

First recorded in 1800–10; tub + -y ¹

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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

Diving in a kelp forest in Monterey Bay recently, I watched a tubby 200-pound harbor seal follow a fellow diver, nibbling on his flippers.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2025

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

Then they invite the public to vote online for their favorite tubby bear.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 26, 2022

Now no one spoke to him, and I can see now in my mind his tubby loneliness and his face full of hurt pride.

From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck

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 Henry Kitchell Webster

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 S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett

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 Jack London

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