Word.ws English Dictionary

phub

/fʌb/

phub verb: to ignore the conversation around oneself by focusing on one's smartphone.

Verb

phub (third-person singular simple present phubs, present participle phubbing, simple past and past participle phubbed)

  1. (neologism, transitive) To ignore the conversation around oneself by focusing on one's smartphone.
    • Phubbing has been theorized to provoke conflict in romantic relationships because the partner being phubbed feels unimportant and deprioritized compared to the digital content delivered through their partner's mobile phone.2018, Zizi Papacharissi, editor, A Networked Self and Love, Routledge, →ISBN
    • Individuals who were phubbed during a conversation, felt less valued, less close, and less important to the individual who phubbed them.2022, Lambert Deckers, Motivation: Biological, Psychological, and Environmental, Routledge, →ISBN

Noun

phub (plural phubs)

  1. An instance of phubbing.
    • Researchers have found that phubs damage relationships and increase dissatisfaction and depression. About 25% of couples have fought over phubs (Goldberg, 2018).2020, Patrick R. Steffen, editor, Mindfulness for Everyday Living: A Guide for Mental Health Practitioners, Springer Nature, →ISBN, page 93

Proper noun (1) capitalized: PHub

PHub

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of Phub

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Phub

Phub

  1. (Internet, abbreviation, euphemistic, uncommon) Abbreviation of Pornhub.

Forms of phub

Verb
third-person singular presentphubs
present participlephubbing
past participlephubbed
pastphubbed
Noun
pluralphubs
Proper noun
alternative formPHub

Origin of phub

Blend of phone + snub, coined by Adrian Mills at the McCann advertising agency in a brainstorming session in collaboration with the Macquarie Dictionary and a group of selected wordsmiths; subsequently widely promoted by the McCann agency.

Words formed from phub

Questions about phub

What does phub mean?
Phub means to ignore the conversation around oneself by focusing on one's smartphone.
What part of speech is phub?
Phub can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce phub?
Phub is pronounced /fʌb/.
What is the past tense of phub?
The past tense of phub is phubbed.

Words near phub in the dictionary

  1. Phu Lam
  2. Phu Quoc Ridgeback
  3. Phu Quoc Ridgebacks
  4. Phua
  5. Phuan
  6. phub
  7. phubbed
  8. phubbee
  9. phubbees
  10. phubber
  11. phubbers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: phub (page history and authors); PHub (page history and authors); Phub (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-phub.wav.

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