daub

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English dauben,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French dauber (“to whitewash, plaster”),^[5][4][6][2] a verb recorded in Anglo-Norman from the third quarter of the 12th century.^[7] Most dictionaries trace it to Latin dēalbō (“to whiten over, whitewash, plaster”),^{[5][8][2][9][10]} formed from dē- and albō (“to whiten”), from albus (“white”),^[5][11] the ancestor of albino and album.^[12] Barnhart calls the Latin source probable and Etymonline says "perhaps".^[6][4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged goes through an assumed altered form Vulgar Latin *dalbare,^[3] and Skeat through an older French form *dalber.^[13] Partridge rejects the Latin verb and reports a proposal that the French word is a dialect shortening of adouber, influenced by Spanish adobar (“to plaster”).^[14] The noun, dawbe, is from the verb.^[3][5][6] In some dialects it is pronounced /dɒb/ or /dab/, hence the spelling dab.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

To coat a wall with plaster or clay: 1382, in Leviticus in the Wycliffite Bible.^[5] Barnhart has "probably about 1380",^[6] and Dictionary.com dates the verb 1275–1325.^[11] Dauber is older as a surname, Daubour in 1263,^[6][4] and Anglo-Norman daubour, a plasterer, is recorded from 1219.^[7]

Semantic evolution

In Old French the verb meant to clothe in white, to clothe, to furnish, to whitewash and to plaster, and the OED finds that all the English uses come through "plaster".^[5] Ayto explains the change: smearing mud and dung on a frame of laths was a messy job, which led to the wider sense "apply crudely".^[12] The word went on to mean soiling with dirt, before 1450,^[5] and in the 16th century covering something with a false surface, from 1543 to 1683, close to modern "whitewash".^[5][10] Shakespeare used it for putting on a false show in King Lear.^[5] Covering a person with tasteless finery is recorded from 1594,^[5][4] and dirtying paper with worthless writing from 1589 to 1803.^[5] The painting sense, laying on colours coarsely, dates from 1630,^[5] and Etymonline from the 1620s;^[4] Johnson (1755) gave "to paint coarsely" as his second sense.^[15] The noun followed much later: a daubed patch or smear from 1731 and a crude picture from 1761, in Sterne.^[5][4] In slang the verb meant to bribe, from 1699 in the OED,^[5] and Green's Dictionary of Slang takes daubynge in Hickscorner (1512) that way, perhaps from laying it on thick.^[16] The slang noun meant a blow in 1693 and a bribe in 1725.^[16] In northern and Midland dialects, the English Dialect Dictionary records the verb for building with clay and dauber for a plasterer, noting that the Newcastle bricklayers were once called "catters and daubers".^[17]

Timeline

• 1382 – to coat a wall with plaster or clay.^[5]
• 1446 – noun, material for daubing walls.^[5][6]
• before 1450 – to soil with dirt.^[5]
• 1543 – figurative, to cover with a false surface (last recorded 1683).^[5]
• 1589 – to soil paper with ink or poor writing (last recorded 1803).^[5]
• 1594 – to cover a person with tasteless finery.^[5]
• 1630 – to paint coarsely.^[5]
• 1669 – an act of daubing.^[5]
• 1699 – slang, to bribe.^[5]
• 1731 – a patch or smear of something moist.^[5]
• 1761 – a coarsely done painting.^[5][4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cover a wall or similar surface with plaster, mortar, clay or the like: The villagers daubed the walls of the hut with wet clay.^[3][5][18]
2. To smear or spread something sticky or wet, especially carelessly: He daubed grease on the hinges.^[18][5]
3. To make dirty; to soil or stain.^[3][5]
4. To paint clumsily or badly.^[18][5]
5. (slang) To bribe.^[16][5]
6. (obsolete, 1543–1683) To cover with a false outward show; to whitewash or gloss over.^[5][3][10]
7. (obsolete or dialect, 1594–1876) To dress in tasteless finery.^[5][10]

Noun

1. Material such as plaster, clay or mud, often mixed with straw, used to coat walls, as in wattle and daub.^[3][5][18]
2. A patch or smear of paint, mud or the like.^[18][5][10]
3. A crude or unskilful painting.^[18][5][10]
4. An act of daubing.^[18][5][3]

Word family

• dauber
• daubingly
• dauby
• undaubed
• bedaub
• daubery
• wattle and daub

Related words

• dab
• alb
• albino
• album

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
17. ^ 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)
18. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins