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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

cub.

The young of certain animals, chiefly large carnivorous mammals, including the bear, wolf, fox, lion and tiger.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/kʌb/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/kʊb/Ireland, Northern-England

  1. The young of certain animals, chiefly large carnivorous mammals, including the bear, wolf, fox, lion and tiger.

  2. A child, especially an awkward, rude, ill-mannered boy.

    derogatory · humorous

  3. A young man who seeks relationships with older women, or "cougars".

    slang

  4. A stall for cattle.

    obsolete

  5. Synonym of cub reporter.

  6. A furry character that is a child (i.e. under the age of adulthood).

    slang

  7. Clipping of cub porn or cub art.

    abbreviation · alt-of · clipping · slang
    Ew, I didn't know he also drew cub...

  8. A boy or young man.

    Northern-Ireland · Ulster

  9. a younger (or younger-looking) "bear" type of man.

    slang
Where this word comes from

From earlier cubbe. Origin unknown. According to Pokorny, from Proto-Germanic *kubb-, from Proto-Indo-European *gup- (“round object, knoll”), from *gew- (“to bend, curve, convex, arch, vault”). Related terms include cup (cf. cupboard), coffin, cove, etc, essentially “chamber”, thus cub maybe initially derived from the sense “den”, or maybe “womb”. A probable cognate is also found in North Germanic: dialectal Swedish kubbe, kybbe, köbbe, kibb, Danish kippe (“calf”). Also compare Icelandic and Old Norse kobbi (“seal”), Old Irish cuib (“whelp”). Compare also English cob. Originally, the meaning was specifically "young fox", in which sense it has largely replaced English whelp.

verb/kʌb/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/kʊb/Ireland, Northern-England

  1. To give birth to cubs.

  2. To hunt fox cubs.

  3. To shut up or confine.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From earlier cubbe. Origin unknown. According to Pokorny, from Proto-Germanic *kubb-, from Proto-Indo-European *gup- (“round object, knoll”), from *gew- (“to bend, curve, convex, arch, vault”). Related terms include cup (cf. cupboard), coffin, cove, etc, essentially “chamber”, thus cub maybe initially derived from the sense “den”, or maybe “womb”. A probable cognate is also found in North Germanic: dialectal Swedish kubbe, kybbe, köbbe, kibb, Danish kippe (“calf”). Also compare Icelandic and Old Norse kobbi (“seal”), Old Irish cuib (“whelp”). Compare also English cob. Originally, the meaning was specifically "young fox", in which sense it has largely replaced English whelp.

noun/kʌb/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/kʊb/Ireland, Northern-England

  1. Acronym of cashed-up bogan.

    abbreviation · acronym · alt-of
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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.