blob

Etymology

It is an imitative or expressive formation,^[2][3][4][5] perhaps symbolic of a drop of liquid.^[6] The OED explains it, like bleb, as imitating the action of the lips in making a bubble, and thinks that a felt connection with blow may have helped it form or survive.^[2] The verb comes first, in the 15th century, and the noun in the 16th;^[2][7] Merriam-Webster takes the verb as inherited from Middle English bloben, a northern dialect word, formed from the noun.^[8] Barnhart allows a link with bubble in the sense "blister", through blober (“a bubble”), recorded about 1438.^[9][10] Dictionaries also compare blubber, blotch and plop,^[3][4][5][6] and Partridge calls the dialect word, also found as blab, clearly echoic.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

As a verb, to mark with a blob of ink or colour, to blot: 1429, in the Scottish Acts of James I.^[2][9] The noun first meant a bubble: about 1540 in Bellenden's translation of Boece,^[2] 1536 in Barnhart.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The early senses of the noun, a bubble (from about 1540) and a pimple or pustule (1597), survived mainly in Scottish and northern English.^[2][3] In the English Dialect Dictionary blob is still a bubble or a blister from Scotland and Ireland to Cornwall, soap-blobs in Yorkshire, and in Scotland also a large gooseberry.^[12] The current sense, a drop or globule of a liquid or thick substance, is recorded from 1725, in Allan Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd,^[2][9][7] and a small round mass of colour from 1863.^[2][3] In cricket slang a blob has been a batter's score of nought since 1889, after the zero written against the name on the score sheet.^[2][13] Australian slang used it for a dull, foolish or useless person from 1916,^[2][14] and in computing it was taken up in 1988 for a block of unstructured data stored as one item in a database; the OED says this was later explained as an acronym of "binary large object".^[2]

Timeline

• 1429 – verb, to mark with a blob of ink or colour; to blot.^[2][9]
• c. 1540 – noun, a bubble (later only in northern dialect).^[2][3] Barnhart dates the sense to 1536.^[9]
• 1597 – a pimple or pustule.^[2][9]
• 1725 – a drop or globule of liquid or thick matter.^[2][9][7]
• 1855 – verb, to rise in bubbles, in a Yorkshire glossary.^[2]
• 1863 – a small rounded mass of colour.^[2]
• 1889 – in cricket, a score of no runs.^[2]
• 1916 – an insignificant or foolish person, chiefly in Australia.^[2]
• 1988 – an unstructured collection of data stored as a single item.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small drop or lump of something thick or sticky: a blob of glue on the table.^[8][15][2]
2. A spot or daub of colour or ink.^[8][15][2]
3. Something with no clear shape or outline: a dark blob on the horizon.^[8][15]
4. (cricket, informal) A batter's score of zero; a duck.^[2][3]
5. (slang, chiefly Australian) A dull, foolish or useless person.^[2][3][14]
6. (computing) A block of binary data, such as an image or sound file, stored as a single item in a database.^[2]
7. (dialect) A bubble or blister.^[8][2][12]

Verb

1. To mark or cover with blobs; to blot or splotch.^[8][15][2]

Related words

• bleb
• blubber
• bubble
• blab

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
11. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
12. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
15. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins