cub
UK/kʌb/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Ireland/kʊb/
cub noun: the young of certain animals, chiefly large carnivorous mammals, including the bear, wolf, fox, lion and tiger. Also the clipping of cub porn or cub art.
Noun (1)
cub (plural cubs)
- The young of certain animals, chiefly large carnivorous mammals, including the bear, wolf, fox, lion and tiger.
- a Childe of Lacedemon suffered all his belly and gutts to be torne out by a Cubbe or young Foxe, which he had stolne, and kept close under his garment, rather then he would discover his theft.1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 32, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
- A child, especially an awkward, rude, ill-mannered boy.
- O, thou dissembling cub! what wilt thou be / When time hath sowed a grizzle on thy case?c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
- He had also kept with him two wild young wives and several wilder cubs.1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 118
- A young man who seeks relationships with older women, or "cougars".
- A stall for cattle.
- [...] I would rather have such a good mother in cub or kennel, than in my closet, or at my table.1824, Walter Savage Landor, “Conversation XIII. Peter Leopold and President Du Paty.”, in Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen, volume I, London: […] Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC...
- Synonym of cub reporter.
- Swain has interviewed 67 reporters on 16 metropolitan dailies in 10 cities — from cubs to veterans — who talk candidly […]1978, The Journalism Quarterly, volume 55, page 652
- […] from competing publications and the editors of publications that might buy freelance material from cubs.2018, Randall S. Sumpter, Before Journalism Schools
- Synonyms:
- cub reporter
- A furry character that is a child (i.e. under the age of adulthood).
- A boy or young man.
- A man who reared ten cubs and three cutties.1993, Ray Givans, No Surrender, Castlecaulfield, Lapwing Publications, →ISBN, page 14
- The point of the example is educational, moral, and the moral qualities of the stories attracted Peter Flanagan who remembered them from childhood and told them to the cutties and cubs when he was, for them, a funny old man.2016 September 12, Henry Glassie, The Stars of Ballymenone, Indiana University Press, →ISBN, page 229
- a younger (or younger-looking) "bear" type of man.
Verb
cub (third-person singular simple present cubs, present participle cubbing, simple past and past participle cubbed)
- To give birth to cubs.
- To hunt fox cubs.
- He knew that, only a few hours from London, the Hunt was cubbing over his ancestral and much-mortgaged acres, while his own horse ate its head off in a stable.1943, Stuart Palmer, The Puzzle of the Silver Persian
- To shut up or confine.
- to fall from heaven to hell, to be cubbed up upon a sudden1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC
Noun (2) capitalized: Cub
Cub (plural Cubs)
- A member of the Cub Scouts.
- A player on the team the "Chicago Cubs".
- Jones became a Cub as the result of a pre-season trade.
Noun (3) capitalized: CUB
CUB (plural CUBs)
- Initialism of cashed-up bogan.
Also used as
cub is also the clipping of cub porn or cub art.
cub is also the acronym of cashed-up bogan.
cub meaning in Hindi, Telugu, Odia and Sanskrit
cub in Hindi
- the young of certain animals
- शावक śāvak
cub in Telugu
- the young of certain animals
- కూన kūna
cub in Odia
- ଶାବକ
cub in Sanskrit
- the young of certain animals
- पोत pota
More languagesFewer languages
- cub in Assamese
- পোৱালী püali
- cub in Arabic
- هِجْرِس hijris, جَرْو jarw, شِبْل šibl, دَيْسَم daysam
- cub in Persian
- توله tulle
Examples of cub in a sentence
- Black bears can tree their cubs for protection, but grizzly bears cannot.
- This kind of play helps the young lion cubs develop their hunting skills.
- What do you do when you come across two orphaned polar bear cubs?
Synonyms of cub
Forms of cub
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | cubs |
| plural | Cubs |
| plural | CUBs |
| alternative form (obsolete) | cubbe |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | cubs |
| present participle | cubbing |
| past participle | cubbed |
| past | cubbed |
Origin of cub
From earlier cubbe. Origin unknown. According to Pokorny, from Proto-Germanic *kubb-, from Proto-Indo-European *gup- (“round object, knoll”), from *gew- (“to bend, curve, convex, arch, vault”). Related terms include cup (cf. cupboard), coffin, cove, etc, essentially “chamber”, thus cub maybe initially derived from the sense “den”, or maybe “womb”. A probable cognate is also found in North Germanic: dialectal Swedish kubbe, kybbe, köbbe, kibb, Danish kippe (“calf”). Also compare Icelandic and Old Norse kobbi (“seal”), Old Irish cuib (“whelp”). Compare also English cob. Originally, the meaning was specifically "young fox", in which sense it has largely replaced English whelp.
Words formed from cub
Phrases with cub
Words that rhyme with cub
Questions about cub
- What does cub mean?
- Cub means the young of certain animals, chiefly large carnivorous mammals, including the bear, wolf, fox, lion and tiger.
- What is cub in Hindi?
- Cub in Hindi is शावक (śāvak). See Cub meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is cub?
- Cub can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce cub?
- Cub is pronounced /kʌb/ (UK).
- What is the plural of cub?
- The plural of cub is cubs.
Words near cub in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cub (page history and authors); Cub (page history and authors); CUB (page history and authors); cub (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-cub.ogg.
Cite this entry: “cub.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cub. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.