Also 4 bluber, 4–6 blober, 5 blobure, blobyr, blubbir, 7 blobber, (bloother). [ME. blober, bluber sb., blubren, blober vb. are both found in 14th c.: it is uncertain which was of prior formation; perhaps the verb. Being so much earlier than blob, blub, they cannot be extensions of the latter; but are prob. onomatopœic, from the action of the lips in making a bubble, or imitating various bubbling sounds or motions of liquids. Cf. the parallel BLABBER. There is also a dial. Ger. blubbern, said of water casting up bubbles, and a LG. blubbern in herût blubbern to babble or ‘blether.’ See other analogous forms in Wedgwood. The relation to bubble is seen also in the fact that in north. dial. ‘bubble’ is used for the vb. in senses 3, 4, as Sc. ‘to bubble an’ greit’ = to blubber and weep.]
† 1. The foaming or boiling of the sea. Obs.
c. 1325. E. E. Allit. P., C. 221. In bluber of þe blo flod bursten her ores. Ibid., C. 266. How fro þe bot in-to þe blober watz with a best lachched.
† 2. A bubble of foam or air upon water. Obs. exc. dial.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 40. Blobure [1499 blobyr], burbulium.
c. 1450. Henryson, Test. Cres., 192. And at his mouth a blubbir stode of fome.
1530. Palsgr., 199/1. Blober upon water, bovteillis.
State, Leslie of Powis, 136 (Jam.). That he has seen blubbers upon the water … that by blubbers he means air-bubbles.
1830. Forby, East. Angl. Gloss., Blubber, a bubble.
3. A jelly-fish or Medusa, also called sea-nettle.
1602. Carew, Cornwall, 34 b. There swimmeth also in the Sea, a round slymie substance, called a Blobber, reputed noysome to the fish.
1775. Dalrymple, in Phil. Trans., LXVIII. 393. There were many blubbers in the ship’s wake, which made a very luminous appearance.
1835. Marryat, Jac. Faithf., xxxi. The sailors call them blubbers, because they are composed of a sort of transparent jelly.
4. The fat of whales and other cetaceans, from which train-oil is obtained.
1664. Phil. Trans., I. 12. The Oyl of the Blubber is as clear and fair as any Whey.
1666. Lond. Gaz., No. 47/1. She … had in her about twelve hundred weight of Bloother for Oyl.
1671. Ray, in Phil. Trans., VI. 2275. The fat, which … our Seamen call the Blubber.
1746. W. Thompson, R. N. Advoc. (1757), 43. Not properly Flesh, but Slush, or Blubber, like Whales Blubber.
1870. Yeats, Nat. Hist. Comm., 281. In a large whale the blubber will weigh thirty tons.
5. The action of blubbering or weeping.
1825. J. Neal, Bro. Jonathan, I. 85. Jotham … whose every breath was a hoarse blubber.
1865. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., III. IX. xi. 180. All in a blubber of tears.
6. Comb. and Attrib. (chiefly in sense 4), as blubber-boat, -cask, -chopper, -fork, -oil, -room, -ship; blubber-fed adj.; also, blubber-guy, a large rope, or ‘guy,’ suspended between the fore and main masts of a whaler, to assist in securing and supporting the carcase of a whale; blubber-lamp, a lamp that burns blubber-oil; blubber-spade, a spade-like knife used by whalers.
1835. Sir J. Ross, N.-W. Pass., vi. 83. We passed a blubber cask.
1849–52. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., IV. 1316/1. The fat, blubber-fed … Esquimaux.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., II. ii. 29. I carried in our blubber-lamp.
1884. Gd. Words, Jan., 40/2. A wooden jetty, a blubber-boat, and a pile of casks.
