Word.ws English Dictionary

daub

UK/dɔːb//dɔb/

daub noun: excrement or clay used as a bonding material in construction.

Noun

daub (countable and uncountable, plural daubs)

  1. Excrement or clay used as a bonding material in construction.
  2. A soft coating of mud, plaster, etc.
  3. A crude or amateurish painting.
    • Ah, but what if he penned what in the art schools they call an 'artist's statement' wherein he explained the relation of his gibberish or his daubs to the mainstream of art or writing?2008, Joseph Agassi, Ian Charles Jarvie, A Critical Rationalist Aesthetics, page 16

Verb

daub (third-person singular simple present daubs, present participle daubing, simple past and past participle daubed)

  1. (intransitive, transitive) To apply (something) to a surface in hasty or crude strokes.
    • The artist just seemed to daub on paint at random and suddenly there was a painting.
    • […] she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch […]1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 2:3
    Synonyms:
    apply, coat, cover, plaster, smear
  2. (transitive) To paint (a picture, etc.) in a coarse or unskilful manner.
    • […] a lame, imperfect Piece, rudely daub’d over with too little Reflection and too much haste.1695, Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy, translated by John Dryden, Observations on the Art of Painting, London: W. Rogers, page 201
    • If a Picture is daub’d with many bright and glaring Colours, the vulgar Eye admires it as an excellent Piece […]1725, Isaac Watts, chapter 3, in Logick: Or, The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry after Truth, […], 2nd edition, London: […] John Clark and Richard Hett, […], Emanuel Matthews, […], and Richard...
  3. (obsolete, transitive) To cover with a specious or deceitful exterior; to disguise; to conceal.
    • So smooth he daub’d his vice with show of virtue,c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    • No flattering praises daub my stone,
      My frailties and my faults to hide;1820, John Clare, “The Universal Epitaph”, in Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery, London: Taylor & Hessey, page 91
  4. (obsolete, transitive) To flatter excessively or grossly.
    • I can safely say, however, that without any daubing at all, I am, very sincerely, Your very affectionate, humble servant,1766, Tobias Smollett, Travels through France and Italy, London: R. Baldwin, Volume 2, Letter 28, p. 73
  5. (obsolete, transitive) To put on without taste; to deck gaudily.
    • Yet shall Whitehall the Innocent, the Good,
      See these men dance all daub’d with Lace and Blood.1697, John Dryden, “On the Three Dukes killing the Beadle on Sunday Morning, Febr. the 26th, 1670/1” in John Denham et al., Poems on affairs of state from the time of Oliver Cromwell, to the...
    • […] whenever they came in order to pay those islanders a visit, [they] were generally very well dressed, and very poor, daubed with lace, but all the gilding on the outside.1762, Oliver Goldsmith, The Citizen of the World, London, Volume 1, Letter 50, p. 224
  6. (transitive) To mark spots on a bingo card, using a dauber.

Proper noun capitalized: Daub

Daub (plural Daubs)

  1. A surname.

daub meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu

daub in Tamil

to daub, smear, anoint
சாத்து cāttu
to daub, smear, rub over
இழுகு iḻuku

daub in Urdu

ساننا

daub in Bengali

লেপন করা, আনাড়িভাবে মাখানো

daub in Telugu

to daub, to apply, to anoint
పూయు pūyu
More languagesFewer languages
daub in Malayalam
കുമ്മായമിടുക, പൂശുക, വേഷം ധരിക്കുക, അശ്രദ്ധയായി ചായമടിക്കുക
daub in Kannada
ಹಚ್ಚು
daub in Gujarati
લીપવું līpvũ

Examples of daub in a sentence

  • Gibson could not well come up to the girl’s bedroom every night and see that she daubed her face and neck over with the cosmetics so carefully provided for her.1864 August – 1866 January, [Elizabeth] Gaskell, “The Bride at Home”, in Wives and Daughters. An Every-day Story. […], volume I, London...
  • An artist friend fitted her out with his castoff palettes, brushes, and colors, and she daubed away, producing pastoral and marine views such as were never seen on land or sea.1868–1869, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, Little Women: […], (please specify |part=1 or 2), Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC:
  • […] as he watched, [the motorcar] came up the snow-covered road, green and brown painted, in broken patches of daubed color, the windows blued over so that you could not see in […]1940, Ernest Hemingway, chapter 15, in For Whom the Bell Tolls, London: Jonathan Cape, page 185:
  • Blood was running to her shoe, and her stocking was torn in a jagged hole. […] she wet toilet paper and daubed until the red was gone from her stocking, but the red kept coming.1952, Patricia Highsmith, chapter 3, in The Price of Salt, Norton, published 2004, page 39:

All 18 example sentences with daub

Synonyms of daub

All synonyms of daub

Forms of daub

Noun
pluraldaubs
Verb
third-person singular presentdaubs
present participledaubing
past participledaubed
pastdaubed
Proper noun
pluralDaubs

Origin of daub

From Middle English daub (noun), from Middle English dauben (“to plaster or whitewash; cover with clay; bespatter”, verb), from Old Northern French dauber (“to whitewash; plaster”), of uncertain origin. Probably from Latin dealbāre (“to whiten thoroughly”), which would make it a doublet of dealbate.

* As a German and Jewish surname, variant of Taube, occupational surname from the noun meaning "pigeon, dove." * As a south German surname, from the adjective taub (“deaf”).

Words formed from daub

Words that rhyme with daub

Questions about daub

What does daub mean?
Daub means excrement or clay used as a bonding material in construction.
What is daub in Tamil?
Daub in Tamil is சாத்து (cāttu), இழுகு (iḻuku). See Daub meaning in Tamil.
How do you use daub in a sentence?
Gibson could not well come up to the girl’s bedroom every night and see that she daubed her face and neck over with the cosmetics so carefully provided for her.
What part of speech is daub?
Daub can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce daub?
Daub is pronounced /dɔːb/ (UK).
What is the plural of daub?
The plural of daub is daubs.

Words near daub in the dictionary

  1. Datz
  2. Datzes
  3. dau
  4. dau miu
  5. dau.
  6. daub
  7. daubable
  8. daube
  9. Daubechies wavelet
  10. Daubechies wavelets
  11. daubed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: daub (page history and authors); Daub (page history and authors); இழுகு (Tamil) (page history and authors); daub (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Daub (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); పూయు (Telugu) (page history and authors); daub (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); daub (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); લીપવું (Gujarati) (page history and authors). 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-daub.ogg.

Cite this entry: “daub.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/daub. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.