Word.ws English Dictionary

gob

UK/ɡɒb//ɡɑb/

gob noun: a lump of soft or sticky material.

Noun (1)

gob (countable and uncountable, plural gobs)

  1. (countable) A lump of soft or sticky material.
    • These inventors have discovered that gobs may be fed at widely spaced times without allowing the glass to flow during the interval but instead flushes out the chilled glass which accumulates during the dwell.1952, The Glass Industry, Volume 33, Ashlee Publishing Company, page 309
  2. (slang, uncountable) Saliva or phlegm.
    • He spat a big ball of gob on to the pavement.
    Synonyms:
    saliva, spit, sputum
  3. (US, countable, regional) A whoopie pie.
  4. (in plural) A large amount.
    • gobs of money
    • The story of “Strangers” is a cliché of well-to-do Manhattan: Husband makes gobs of money. Wife, despite her august educational pedigree, stays at home to raise the kids, relinquishing career and otherwise idling in the make-work realm of school boards and volunteering.2026 January 11, Alex Kuczynski, “Her Life Was an Old-Money Dream. It Collapsed in a Moment.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

Verb (1)

gob (third-person singular simple present gobs, present participle gobbing, simple past and past participle gobbed)

  1. To gather into a lump.
    • I liked to gob up two or three worms on a snelled hook, pinch three or four split shot onto the leader, and plunk it into the dark water.1997 March, William G. Tapply, How to Catch a Trout on a Sandwich, Field & Stream, page 60
  2. (ambitransitive, slang) To spit, especially to spit phlegm.

Noun (2)

gob (plural gobs)

  1. (Commonwealth, Ireland, UK, slang) The mouth.
    • He′s always stuffing his gob with fast food.
    • Oi, you, shut your gob!

Noun (3)

gob (plural gobs)

  1. (uncountable) Waste material in old mine workings, goaf.
    • This consisted in wheeling gob back to the most distant part of the stope and filling up the sets right up to the roof.1930, Engineering and Mining Journal, volume 130, page 330

Verb (2)

gob (third-person singular simple present gobs, present participle gobbing, simple past and past participle gobbed)

  1. (intransitive) To pack away waste material in order to support the walls of the mine.

Noun (4)

gob (plural gobs)

  1. (US, slang) A sailor.
    • Well I have taken the oath of allegiance for 4 years service anywhere in the world and am now a real 'gob' in the U. S. Navy.1918 October 22, Letter of Adlai Stevenson, quoted in John Bartlow Martin, Adlai Stevenson of Illinois: The Life of Adlai E. Stevenson (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976), page 53
    • If it weren't for the Fleet I should scarcely be able to endure it. Gobs are always amusing, as you know.1928, Hart Crane, letter, 27 April

gob meaning in Tamil, Urdu and Indonesian

gob in Tamil

உமிழ்ந்த எச்சில்

gob in Urdu

ڈھیر, منہ, نوالہ, تکہ

gob in Indonesian

slang: mouth
bacot

Examples of gob in a sentence

  • She's got such a gob on her – she's always gossiping about someone or other.
  • Now washing you will be like washing a goth / All that black lipstick around their gobs2005, “Tango”, in Public Warning, performed by Lady Sovereign:
  • Full-cut, dashing "gob" slacks with back pocket.1937, Stella Blum, Everyday Fashion of the Thirties as pictured in Sears Catalogs, published 1986, page 94:
  • The towing point can be a bullnose up forward, a tow bitt aft, a staple, a towing hook, or a gob line.2009, Jeffrey Sleisinger, Shiphandling With Tugs:

All 23 example sentences with gob

Synonyms of gob

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of gob

Forms of gob

Noun
pluralgobs
alternative formgog
Verb
third-person singular presentgobs
present participlegobbing
past participlegobbed
pastgobbed

Plural of gob: gobs

Origin of gob

From Middle English gobbe (also Middle English gobet), from Old French gobet, gobe (“lump, mouthful”), from Transalpine Gaulish *gobbo- (“neb, muzzle”).

Probably from Irish gob, Scottish Gaelic gob (“beak, mouth”).

Back-formation from gobbing, or a specified use of Etymology 1, above.

Words formed from gob

Phrases with gob

Words that rhyme with gob

20 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about gob

What does gob mean?
Gob means a lump of soft or sticky material.
What is gob in Tamil?
Gob in Tamil is உமிழ்ந்த எச்சில். See Gob meaning in Tamil.
How do you use gob in a sentence?
She's got such a gob on her – she's always gossiping about someone or other.
What part of speech is gob?
Gob can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce gob?
Gob is pronounced /ɡɒb/ (UK).
What is the plural of gob?
The plural of gob is gobs.

Words near gob in the dictionary

  1. goaty
  2. goave
  3. goaved
  4. goaves
  5. goaving
  6. gob
  7. gob iron
  8. gob irons
  9. gob job
  10. gob jobs
  11. gob off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gob (page history and authors); gob (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); gob (Urdu Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-gob.ogg, EN-AU ck1 gob.ogg.

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