lob
/lɒb/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Australia/lɔb/
lob verb: to throw or hit a ball into the air in a high arc.
Verb
lob (third-person singular simple present lobs, present participle lobbing, simple past and past participle lobbed)
- To throw or hit a ball into the air in a high arc.
- The guard lobbed a pass just over the defender.
- The tennis player lobbed the ball, which was a costly mistake.
- To throw.
- In the months leading up to the election, government representatives took up a cybercrime case against Thanathorn for criticising the government on a Facebook Live video... They also lobbed more legal cases at his party for allegedly spreading false information.2019 April 6, Caleb Quinley, “Thailand: Anti-military party leader faces sedition charges”, in Al Jazeera, Doha: Al Jazeera, retrieved 06 Apr 2019
- I'm sure the Brunel-designed stone-built structure would have had a hatstand for his trademark stovepipe. I can picture him rocking up there of a morning and lobbing it nonchalantly onto the hatstand.2021 December 29, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and facts behind railway plaques: Chippenham (1841)”, in RAIL, number 947, page 57
- To put, place.
- Lob the bacon in the pot.
- To hit, kick, or throw a ball over another player in a game.
- Wigan took the lead when Hugo Rodallega lobbed David Stockdale from close range having earlier headed against the post.2011 January 15, Nabil Hassan, “Wigan 1 - 1 Fulham”, in BBC
- To let fall heavily or lazily.
- And their poor jades / Lob down their heads.1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
- To reach or arrive at (a place).
- So with great trepidation we lobbed at the theatre and were escorted to our seats[.]1995, Paul Vautin, Turn It Up!, Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, page 204
Noun (1)
lob (plural lobs)
- A pass or stroke which arcs high into the air.
- The guard launched a desperate lob over the outstretched arms of the defender.
- Peter Lovenkrands went close for the Magpies, hitting the bar with a fine lob after he had been played in by the excellent Jose Enrique on the left.2011 February 12, Nabil Hassan, “Blackburn 0 - 0 Newcastle”, in BBC
Noun (2)
lob (plural lobs)
- A country bumpkin; a yokel.
- Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone: Our queen and all her elves come here anon.c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First...
- THE country lob trudged home very much concerned and thoughtful, you may swear; insomuch that his good woman, seeing him thus look moping, weened that something had been stolen from him at market […]1694, Peter Anthony Motteux, The Fourth Book, translation of original by Rabelais, Chapter XLVII
- Synonyms:
- bogger, bogtrotter, boor, bucolic, bydlo, culchie, carl, churl, corncob, cornhusker
- A lump.
- A nugget (of gold); (hence), a quantity of money; a haul; booty.
- And, moreover, I had no sooner set my eyes on the keys, than I remembered where there was a lob of money lying in Purcell's safe, that I —1875, M.L. Kenny, The fortunes of Maurice Cronin, page 126
- To the sellers in the market, to the barmen and barmaids, to the beggars who importuned him for a lob Mr Dedalus told the same tale […].1916, James Joyce, chapter II, in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, New York, N.Y.: B[enjamin] W. Huebsch, →OCLC
- A clumsy person.
- The person who comes last in a race.
- A lob-worm.
Noun (3)
lob (plural lobs)
- A fish, the European pollock.
Noun (4)
lob (plural lobs)
- A long bob haircut.
Noun (5)
the lob
- A form of fraud in which a person asks for change in a shop, palms some of the coins, and tells the shopkeeper that he has not given them enough.
- Some are acute for the Lob; which is, going into a Shop to have a Guinea or Pistole chang'd, and the Change being given, the bringer of the Gold telling it over, Palms Two or Three Shillings, then returning the Money, says there wants so much, which the Shop-keeper telling over again, and finding...1703, Hell Upon Earth, page 4
Noun (6) capitalized: LOB
LOB (countable and uncountable, plural LOBs)
- Abbreviation of large object.
- Initialism of line of business.
- Initialism of limit order book, an order book of limit orders.
- Initialism of live on board (i.e. liveaboard)
Proper noun capitalized: Lob
Lob (plural Lobs)
- A surname.
lob meaning in Malayalam and Nepali
lob in Malayalam
- ലോബ് ചെയ്യാൻ
lob in Nepali
- लोब गर्न
Examples of lob in a sentence
- Roberts scored a superb goal from the halfway line, lobbing the goalkeeper.
- I pull the pin and lob the explosive side-handed into the room.
- So instead of lobbing a cream puff, I kicked up my leg and brought the Ruttlemyer Express.
Synonyms of lob
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of lob
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | lobs |
| present participle | lobbing |
| past participle | lobbed |
| past | lobbed |
| Noun | |
| plural | lobs |
| plural | LOBs |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Lobs |
Origin of lob
First attested late 16th c. in the sense "allow or cause to dangle, hang," from sense 2.
From Middle English lob (“a lazy lout, bundle of clothing”), from Old English *lobb, *lobbe word for lumpish or unwieldy things, from Proto-Germanic *lubbǭ (“that which hangs or dangles”), from Proto-Indo-European *lewbʰ-, *lep- (“to peel, skin”). Compare Danish lobbes (“bumpkin, clown”), Old English loppe (“spider”) (in the sense of something that hangs or dangles). Possibly influenced or borrowed through Welsh llob (“lump”).
From Middle English lob (“pollock”), cognate with Middle Dutch and Middle Low German lobbe (“a type of small plump or stocky fish, cod”), Danish lubbe, from Old Norse lubba, ultimately from sense 2 in the sense of "clumsy, heavily or lumpily hanging."
Words formed from lob
Phrases with lob
Words that rhyme with lob
44 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about lob
- What does lob mean?
- Lob means to throw or hit a ball into the air in a high arc.
- What is lob in Malayalam?
- Lob in Malayalam is ലോബ് ചെയ്യാൻ. See Lob meaning in Malayalam.
- What part of speech is lob?
- Lob can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce lob?
- Lob is pronounced /lɒb/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of lob?
- The past tense of lob is lobbed.
Words near lob in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: lob (page history and authors); LOB (page history and authors); Lob (page history and authors); lob (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); lob (Nepali, 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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-lob.wav.
Cite this entry: “lob.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lob. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.