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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

bub.

An alcoholic malt liquor, especially beer.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/bʌb/Received-Pronunciation/bɐb/Australia/bʊb/Ireland, Northern-England
  1. An alcoholic malt liquor, especially beer.

    historical · slang · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Probably imitative of the sound of drinking.

noun/bʌb/Received-Pronunciation/bɐb/Australia/bʊb/Ireland, Northern-England
  1. A woman's breast.

    slang
Where this word comes from

Contraction of bubby.

noun/bʌb/Received-Pronunciation/bɐb/Australia/bʊb/Ireland, Northern-England
  1. A term of familiar address; bubba; bubby.

  2. A young brother; a little boy; a familiar term of address for a small boy.

Where this word comes from

Either a corruption of brother, a modification of bud, or a borrowing from Pennsylvania German Bub or Southern German Bub (as was spoken in various communities in America before the early 20th century), ultimately thought to be derived from Proto-Germanic *bō- (“close [male] relation”) and thus cognate to English boy and babe. Other probable cognates West Frisian bobbe, German Bube (“boy”), dialectal Swedish babbe (“little boy”), English babe, baby, and bully, Dutch boef (“mischievous lad, rascal”), Middle Low German bôve, and Icelandic bófi.

noun/bʌb/Received-Pronunciation/bɐb/Australia/bʊb/Ireland, Northern-England
  1. A baby.

    Australia · slang
Where this word comes from

Perhaps from Northern dialectal English bab, from Middle English bab, a variant of babe (“babe, baby”).

verb/bʌb/Received-Pronunciation/bɐb/Australia/bʊb/Ireland, Northern-England
  1. To throw out in bubbles; to bubble.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

Shortened from bubble and bubbly.

noun/bʌb/Received-Pronunciation/bɐb/Australia/bʊb/Ireland, Northern-England
  1. Clipping of bubble.

    abbreviation · alt-of · clipping
  2. Clipping of bubbly; champagne.

    abbreviation · alt-of · clipping · slang
Where this word comes from

Shortened from bubble and bubbly.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.