bob

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: bŏb, IPA^(key): /bɒb/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒb
• (US) enPR: bäb, IPA^(key): /bɑb/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑːb

From Middle English bobben (“to strike, beat, shake, jog”), of uncertain origin. Compare Scots bob (“to mark, dance with a bobbing motion”), Icelandic boppa (“to wave up and down”), Swedish bobba (“to bob”), Dutch dobberen ("bobbing").

bob (third-person singular simple present bobs, present participle bobbing, simple past and past participle bobbed)

1. (intransitive) To move gently and vertically, in either a single motion or repeatedly up and down, at or near the surface of a body of water, or similar medium.

   The cork bobbed gently in the calm water.

   The ball, which we had thought lost, suddenly bobbed up out of the water.

   The flowers were bobbing in the wind.

2. (transitive) To move (something) as though it were bobbing in water.

   I bobbed my head underwater and saw the goldfish.

   bob one's head (= to nod)

3. To curtsy.
4. To strike with a quick, light blow; to tap.
   • 1531, Thomas Elyot, “In what wise musike may be to a noble man necessarie: and what modestie ought to be therin”, in Ernest Rhys, editor, The Boke Named the Governour […] (Everyman’s Library), London: J[oseph] M[alaby] Dent & Co; New York, N.Y.: E[dward] P[ayson] Dutton & Co, published [1907], →OCLC, 1st book, page 26:

     And if any man hapned, by longe sittynge, to slepe, or, by any other countenance, to shewe him selfe to be weary, he was sodaynly bobbed on the face by the seruantes of Nero, […]

   • c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Famous Historie of Troylus and Cresseid. […] (First Quarto), London: […] G[eorge] Eld for R[ichard] Bonian and H[enry] Walley, […], published 1609, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i], signature [C4], recto:

     Lo, lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he vtters, his euaſions haue eares thus long, I haue bobd his braine more then he has beate my bones.

5. (intransitive) Synonym of blob (“catch eels using worms strung on thread”)
   • 1876, George Christopher Davies, The Swan and Her Crew, page 134:

     After they had had supper Frank said, Do you remember those men whom we saw near Norwich, who sat in small boats all the night long, and with a line in each hand, bobbed for eels?

bob (plural bobs)

1. A bobbing motion; a quick up and down movement.

   a bob of the head

2. A curtsy.
3. A bobber (buoyant fishing device).
   • 1613, John Dennys, The Secrets of Angling:

     Or yellow bobs turn'd up before the plough / Are chiefest baits, with cork and lead enough.

4. Any of various hesperiid butterflies.

From Middle English bobbe (“a cluster (of fruit); a twig with its leaves, a spray”).

bob (plural bobs)

1. A bob haircut.
2. Any round object attached loosely to a flexible line, a rod, a body part etc., so that it may swing when hanging from it.
   • 1773, Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer:

     Ecod! I have got them. Here they are. My cousin Con's necklaces, bobs and all.

3. The dangling mass of a pendulum or plumb line.
4. The docked tail of a horse.
5. A short line ending a stanza of a poem.
6. The short runner of a sled.
7. A bobsleigh.
8. A small wheel, made of leather, with rounded edges, used in polishing spoons, etc.
9. A working beam in a steam engine.
10. A particular style of ringing changes on bells.
11. A blow; a shake or jog; a rap, as with the fist.
12. (obsolete) A knot or short curl of hair; also, a bob wig.
    • 1737, William Shenstone, The Extent of Cookery:

      A plain brown bob he wore.

13. (obsolete) The refrain of a song.
    • 1692, Roger L’Estrange, “[The Fables of Abstemius, &c.] Fab[le] CCLXXXIII. A Widow had a mind to Marry.”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC, page 248:

      Ay, Ay, and Then to Bed, ſays the Bride. This Girl did but ſpeak the Widows Mind; for let Fleſh and Blood pretend what it will, to Bed, to Bed, will be the Bob of the Song.

14. (obsolete) A jeer; a sharp jest or taunt.
    • c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene vii], page 203, column 1, lines 53–55:

      Hee, that a Foole doth very wiſely hit,
      Doth very fooliſhly, although he ſmart,
      Seeme ſenſeleſſe of the bob.

bob (third-person singular simple present bobs, present participle bobbing, simple past and past participle bobbed)

1. (transitive) To cut (hair) into a bob haircut.

   I got my hair bobbed. How do you like it?

2. (transitive) To shorten by cutting; to dock; to crop.
3. To bobsleigh.

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

bob (plural bob or (rare) bobs)

1. (Kenya, slang; UK and Australia, historical, dated) A shilling.
   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 12: Cyclops]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 308:

     One of the bottlenosed fraternity it was went by the name of James Wought alias Saphiro alias Spark and Spiro, put an ad in the papers saying he'd give a passage to Canada for twenty bob.

   • 1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XXIX, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLC, pages 214–215:

     “’Ere y’are, the best rig-out you ever ’ad. A tosheroon [half a crown]^[sic] for the coat, two ’ogs for the trousers, one and a tanner for the boots, and a ’og for the cap and scarf. That’s seven bob.”

   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XVII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

     […] there was a sound of barking and a great hefty dog of the Hound of the Baskervilles type came galloping at me, obviously intent on mayhem, […]. And I was just commending my soul to God and thinking that this was where my new flannel trousers got about thirty bobs' worth of value bitten out of them, […]

2. (Australia, dated slang) A 10-cent coin.
3. (slang) An unspecified amount of money.

   Spot me a few bob, Robert.

   I could have saved myself a few bob buying it somewhere else.

   • 1949 March 23, “Capital Planning For Cherry Blossom Festival On April 3”, in Warren Times-Mirror, volume forty-nine, Warren, Pa., page twelve, column 1:

     A great many visitors are expected. They will take pictures of each other under the cherry blossoms and—the Chamber of Commerce hopes—spend a few bobs for hot logs, gasoline, eastern finery and souvenirs of the nation’s capital.

   • 1964, Len Deighton, “Tuesday, November 5th”, in Funeral in Berlin, New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, published 1965, →LCCN, page 294:

     It was a Molotov cocktail to dispose of my mortal remains. / “Cor, what a beauty.” / “Hello, somebody’s thrown a match into a box of fireworks; easy to do.” / “A few bobs’ worth of whizzers gone up there, Mabel.”

• The use of bob for shilling is dated slang in the UK and Australia, since decimalisation. In East African countries where the currency is the shilling, it is current usage, and not considered slang. OED gives first usage as 1789.
• The use of bob to describe a 10-cent coin is derived from the fact that it was of equal worth to a shilling during decimalisation, however since then, the term has slowly dropped out of usage and is seldom used today.

bob (plural bobs)

1. Abbreviation of shishkabob.

blitter object

bob (plural bobs)

1. (computer graphics, demoscene) A graphical element, resembling a hardware sprite, that can be blitted around the screen in large numbers.
   • 1986, Eugene P Mortimore, Amiga programmer's handbook, Volumes 1-2:

     The bob list determines the drawing priority […]

   • 1995, John Girvin, “Blitting bobs”, in comp.sys.amiga.programmer (Usenet):

     IMHO, youd ^[sic] be better doing other things with the CPU and letting the blitter draw bobs, esp on a machine with fast ram.

   • 2002, demoeffects, “Demotized 0.0.1 - A collection of demo effects from the early days of the demo scene.”, in fm.announce (Usenet):

     Changes: This release adds 2 new effects (bobs and unlimited bobs), has a GFX directory for sharing graphics, adds utility functions to the common code

• shadebob

• obb

• IPA^(key): /bɔp/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: bob
• Rhymes: -ɔp
• Homophone: Bob

From bewust onbeschonken bestuurder (“deliberately unintoxicated driver”).

bob m (plural bobs, diminutive bobje n)

1. designated driver

Borrowed from English bob.

bob f or m (plural bobs)

1. (winter sports) bob, bobsleigh

   Synonym: bobslee

• IPA^(key): /bɔb/

• Audio

  (file)

From the English personal name Bob, used to designate light infantrymen, and probably introduced into French during the First World War.

bob m (plural bobs)

1. bucket hat, fishing hat

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

bob m (plural bobs)

1. (Belgium) designated driver, DD

• “bob”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• IPA^(key): [ˈbob]
• Hyphenation: bob
• Rhymes: -ob

bob (plural bobok)

1. bobsleigh
2. a type of sled (a flat-bottomed concave plastic sled with no runners, equipped with brakes)
3. a car used on the track of an alpine slide or bobsled rollercoaster (mountain coaster)

• bob in Ittzés, Nóra (ed.). A magyar nyelv nagyszótára (‘A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2006–2031 (work in progress; published A–ez as of 2024)

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

bob m (genitive singular bob, nominative plural bobanna)

1. (hair) bob
   1. fringe (of hair over forehead)
   2. bob(tail)

      Synonym: bob eireabaill

bob m (genitive singular bob, nominative plural bobanna)

1. stump, target (in games)

• bob a bhualadh ar dhuine (“to play a trick on someone”)

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “bob”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN
• Entries containing “bob” in English-Irish Dictionary, An Gúm, 1959, by Tomás de Bhaldraithe.
• Entries containing “bob” in New English-Irish Dictionary by Foras na Gaeilge.

Pseudo-anglicism, a clipping of English bobsled.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɔb/
• Rhymes: -ɔb
• Hyphenation: bòb

bob m (invariable)

1. bobsleigh / bobsled

• bobbista

From Proto-Slavic *bobъ, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰabʰ-. Cognate with Upper Sorbian bob, Polish bób, Czech bob, Russian боб (bob), Serbo-Croatian bȍb.

• IPA^(key): /bɔp/

bob m inan

1. (uncountable) bean plant
2. beanfield

• bobowka f (“an individual bean seed”)

• tšuka f (“bean pod”)

• Muka, Arnošt (1921, 1928) “bob”, in Słownik dolnoserbskeje rěcy a jeje narěcow (in German), St. Petersburg, Prague: ОРЯС РАН, ČAVU; Reprinted Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag, 2008
• Starosta, Manfred (1999) “bob”, in Dolnoserbsko-nimski słownik / Niedersorbisch-deutsches Wörterbuch (in German), Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag

• bobe
• bóbi

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈbɔ.bi/

bob m (plural bobes)

1. curler (small cylindrical tube)
2. hair roller, hair curler

• IPA^(key): /ˈbob/

Borrowed from Serbo-Croatian bȍb.

bob n (plural boabe)

1. a type of bean, field bean, horse bean, broad bean
2. a grain
3. any seed, pit, stone, berry

• boabă

• sămânță
• grăunte

Borrowed from English bobsleigh.

bob n (plural boburi)

1. bobsleigh

• sanie

From Middle English bobbe (“cluster of fruit; spray of leaves”).[1]

bob (plural bobs)

1. a bunch, a cluster (of things)
2. (obsolete) a nosegay, bunch of flowers
3. a knot; a bunch of ribbon
4. a patch of rich grass

bob (third-person singular simple present bobs, present participle bobbin, simple past bobbit, past participle bobbit)

1. (of grass) to grow richly in patches

Uncertain. Possibly onomatopoeic expressing quick movement,[2] but compare English bob, above.[3]

bob (plural bobs)

1. a dance

bob (third-person singular simple present bobs, present participle bobbin, simple past bobbit, past participle bobbit)

1. to dance with up-and-down movement

   Synonym: bab

Unknown. Possibly from Middle English bobben (“to strike”) or Old French bober, baubir (“to mock, deride”).[4]

bob (plural bobs)

1. a target, a mark to aim at
2. a taunt

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *bobъ.

• IPA^(key): /bôb/

bȍb m (Cyrillic spelling бо̏б)

1. broad bean
2. horse bean

From English bob.

• IPA^(key): /bôb/

bȍb m (Cyrillic spelling бо̏б)

1. bobsled

bob m

1. bobsleigh / bobsled

• IPA^(key): /ˈbob/ [ˈboβ̞]
• Rhymes: -ob
• Syllabification: bob

bob m (plural bobs)

1. bob, bob haircut (hairstyle)

• IPA^(key): /boːb/

bob

1. Soft mutation of pob.