bob

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

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑːb

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

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 under water and saw the goldfish.

   bob one's head (= to nod)

3. To curtsy.
4. To strike with a quick, light blow; to tap.
   • Elyot

     He was suddenly bobbed on the face by the servants.

• bobber
• bob for apples
• bob up

bob (plural bobs)

1. A bobbing motion.

   a bob of the head

2. A bobber.
   • Lauson

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

3. A curtsy.

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 small wheel, made of leather, with rounded edges, used in polishing spoons, etc.
8. A working beam in a steam engine.
9. A particular style of ringing changes on bells.
10. A blow; a shake or jog; a rap, as with the fist.
11. (obsolete) A knot or short curl of hair; also, a bob wig.
    • Shenstone

      A plain brown bob he wore.

12. (obsolete) The refrain of a song.
    • L'Estrange

      To bed, to bed, will be the bob of the song.

13. (obsolete) A jeer; a sharp jest or taunt.
    • Shakespeare: As You Like It; A,2; Sc.,7; Lines 53-5

      He that a fool doth very wisely hit,
      Doth very foolishly, although he smart,
      Not to seem senseless 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. Short form of bobsleigh

bob (plural bob)

1. (Kenya, slang ; UK and Australia, historical, dated ) A shilling.
   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[[Episode 12: The Cyclops]]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare & Co.; Sylvia Beach, OCLC 560090630; republished London: Published for the Egoist Press, London by John Rodker, Paris, October 1922, OCLC 2297483:

     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, George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London, xxix

     ‘’Ere y’are, the best rig-out you ever ’ad. A tosheroon [half a crown] 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. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter XVII

     […] 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 […]

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

2. (Australia, dated slang) A 10-cent coin.
3. (slang) An unspecified amount of money.
   • Spot me a few bob, Robert.

• 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-a-job
• bent as a nine-bob note
• two bob
• two-bob bit

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 (on Internet newsgroup comp.sys.amiga.programmer)

     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. (on Internet newsgroup fm.announce)

     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

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. bob, bobsleigh

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

• IPA^(key): /bɔb/

• Audio

  (file)

bob m (plural bobs)

1. bucket hat, fishing hat

• “bob” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

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

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)

• szánkó

• bobos

bob m (genitive singular bob, nominative plural bobanna)

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

• (bobtail): bob eireabaill

• bob scoilte (“parting”) (in hair)
• bob leicinn (“hair parted to one side”)

bob m (genitive singular bob, nominative plural bobanna)

1. stump, target (in games)

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

• "bob" in Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla, An Gúm, 1977, by Niall Ó Dónaill.

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

1. (uncountable) bean plant
2. beanfield

• bobowka f (“an individual bean seed”)

• tšuka f (“bean pod”)

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 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 (plural bobs)

1. bob, bob haircut (hairstyle)

bob

1. Soft mutation of pob.