blubber

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English blober, also bluber, "a bubble, foaming water", with the verb bloberen, also bluberen, "to bubble, seethe".^[2][3][4] Both are probably imitative, of bubbling liquids or of the lips making a bubble.^{[3][2][5][6][7]} Both forms appear in the 14th century, and the OED cannot tell which came first, perhaps the verb,^[3] while the Middle English Dictionary and Barnhart derive the verb from the noun.^[2][8] The surname Blobermere (1296) may show the noun earlier.^[2][8] The OED rules out a derivation from blob, recorded much later,^[3] and compares dialect German blubbern (“to cast up bubbles”) and Low German blubbern (“to babble”),^[3] which the Shorter Oxford also compares and Collins gives as a possible source.^[9][10] In northern dialect bubble is itself used for weeping.^[3][11] The adjective is a later alteration of blabber and blobber, "swollen", under the influence of blub and the noun.^[3][12][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Foaming or seething water: about 1400, in the alliterative poem Patience, probably composed about 1380, where the sea is þe blober.^[3][2][8] The verb "to bubble" is first recorded in Cleanness, a text of the same manuscript and date.^[3][2] The OED's first date for the noun and the verb is therefore about 1400.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The idea of bubbling led to both main modern meanings.^[13][5] The verb, "to bubble", was transferred to noisy weeping about 1400,^[8][5][3] usually with contempt or ridicule,^[3] and it kept that sense after the literal one died out in the 18th century.^[3] From the 1580s it took objects: tears, words uttered while sobbing, and a face wet with weeping, the notion of swelling coming later under the influence of the adjective.^[3] Johnson (1755) defined it as swelling the cheeks with weeping.^[14] The noun's path to "whale fat" is less clear.^[13] The Middle English Dictionary records "a pustule", "entrails" and "fish or whale oil",^[2] and Ayto suggests that a 15th-century use for fish entrails, perhaps because they looked bubbly when cut open, was the link.^[13] Barnhart finds whale fat or fish oil in 1467,^[8] but the OED's first record of whale fat is of 1665,^[3] and Skeat thought of the fat's bladder-like cells.^[7] Meanwhile a jellyfish was called a blubber from 1602,^[3][5] and it still is in Cornish dialect and in informal Australian use.^[15][10] From 1788 in the OED, and 1830 in Green's Dictionary of Slang, the word could be used of a person's excess fat,^[3][16] now a colloquial and usually derogatory use.^[3] The cant word blubber for the mouth (1725), which Green takes from blab, has a separate source.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – noun, the foaming or boiling of the sea.^[3][2][8]
• c. 1400 – verb, to bubble (last record 1751).^[3][2]
• c. 1400 – verb, to weep noisily.^[3][8][5]
• c. 1440 – noun, a bubble on water (dialect by 1825).^[3]
• 1467 – noun, whale fat or fish oil.^[8] The OED's first quotation for the fat of whales is of 1665.^[3]
• 1584 – verb, to wet or disfigure the face with weeping.^[3]
• 1590 – verb, to utter with tears and sobs.^[3]
• 1602 – noun, a jellyfish.^[3][5]
• 1677 – adjective, swollen, protruding, especially of lips.^[3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the adjective to 1642.^[6]
• 1788 – noun, excessive body fat on a person.^[3]
• 1825 – noun, the action of blubbering.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The layer of fat under the skin of whales and other large marine mammals, from which oil is obtained.^[6][10][3]
2. (informal) Excess fat on a person.^[6][10][3]
3. A jellyfish; in Australia, an informal name for one.^[6][3][10]
4. An act or the sound of weeping noisily.^[6][10][3]
5. (obsolete, c. 1400) The foaming of the sea.^[3][9]
6. (obsolete except in dialect, 1440–1825) A bubble on water.^[3][9]

Verb

1. To sob noisily and without restraint: The toddler blubbered all the way home.^{[10][4][6][3]}
2. To say something while sobbing: He blubbered an apology to the teacher.^{[10][4][6][3]}
3. To make the face wet and swollen with crying.^{[10][4][6][3]}
4. (obsolete, c. 1400–1751) To bubble.^[3][9]

Adjective

1. Swollen or thick, especially of the lips.^{[10][6][3][9]}

Word family

• blubberer
• blubberingly
• blubbery
• sea blubber

Related words

• blob
• bleb
• bubble
• blub
• blabber

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ 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 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ 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)
16. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com