English
blob
see also: BLOB, Blob
Pronunciation
  • (British) IPA: /blɒb/
  • (America) IPA: /blɑb/
Noun

blob (plural blobs)

  1. A shapeless or amorphous mass; a vague shape or amount, especially of a liquid or semisolid substance; a clump, group or collection that lacks definite shape.
    • 1869: Norman Lockyer et al, Nature
      Only the outermost blob on either side in map 2 displays misalignment.
    • 1895: The Annual of the British School at Athens
      It was a colourful vase with red and white hoops on the lid, and red bands above and below the main frieze. These bands also carry a metope pattern in white of triple lines and blobs, which can just be distinguished on the photographs.
  2. In astronomy, a large cloud of gas. In particular, an extended Lyman-Alpha blob is a huge body of gas that may be the precursor to a galaxy.
  3. (dialect) A bubble; a bleb.
  4. A small freshwater fish (Cottus bairdii); the miller's thumb.
  5. The partially inflated air bag used in the sport of blobbing.
  6. (sports, slang) A score of zero.
    • 1925, Punch (volume 168, page 561)
      A gentleman named W. Shakespeare scored a blob in the Worcestershire v. Lancashire match. We understand that he got out because the ball pitched on a "damned spot."
Translations Verb

blob (blobs, present participle blobbing; past and past participle blobbed)

  1. (transitive) To drop in the form of a blob or blobs
    • 1957, "War of Nerves," Time, 7 October, 1957, [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,809951,00.html]
      […] a cross has been burned during the night on Wechsler's lawn and a painted KKK blobbed across one wall of his home.
  2. (transitive) To drop a blob or blobs onto, cover with blobs.
    • 1959, "The Big Appel," Time, 7 December, 1959, [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,811550,00.html]
      Asked to do a mural in the coffee room of the Municipal Museum, Appel responded by blobbing all four walls and the ceiling with brilliant colors […]
  3. (intransitive) To fall in the form of a blob or blobs.
    • 1964, A. S. Byatt, The Shadow of the Sun, Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1991, Chapter Three, p. 47,
      Caroline began to separate eggs, cracking them into unbelievably even halves, sliding the gold, round and elastic, from shell to shell, whilst the white hung, heavy, translucent, in thick sheets, and blobbed suddenly into her basin.
    • 2013, Marcus Berkmann, "Blood and gore of the real 'who dunnits'," Review of Silent Witnesses by Nigel McCrery, Daily Mail, 22 August, 2013,
      […] whether the blood has splashed, or blobbed, or trickled, can reveal whether the victim was killed here or moved afterwards.
  4. (intransitive, slang) To relax idly and mindlessly; to veg out.
Noun

blob (plural blobs)

  1. Alternative spelling of BLOB
BLOB
Noun

blob (plural blobs)

  1. (databases) Acronym of binary large object a data type that allows storage of binary data often of indeterminate length.
    I've added a BLOB so that we can store pictures.
Related terms
Blob
Proper noun
  1. (US, pejorative, generally with definite article) The section of the elite class in Washington D.C. who have moved from political or regulatory work to lobbying firms or think tanks, especially in foreign policy or on the behalf of corporations.


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