dial. Forms: α. 5 wolbode (welbode), wolle bode; 5 welbede, 6 wolbede, 7 wolbet, volbet; 7 wool-beard, wooll-bed, 8 wool bed. β. Sc. 6 wowbat, woubet (voubet), wobat, 9 vowbet, woubit. γ. north. and Sc. 7 oubut, 9 oubit, oobit, ubit, yeubit, hoobit, hubert; obeed. [ME. wolbode and wolbede, app. f. wol WOOL sb. with obscure second element; the form -bode may be connected with BOUD or BUDDE.] A hairy caterpillar, esp. the larva of the tiger-moth; a ‘woolly bear.’ Also transf. (and attrib.) applied contemptuously to a person.
α. 14[?]. Nom., in Wr.-Wülcker, 706/15. Hic multipes, a welbode.
1483. Cath. Angl., 423/1. A wolle bode (A. Wolbode), multipes.
1496. Treat. Fishing w. Angle (1883), 24. Bynde it on your hoke with fletchers sylke and make it rough lyke a welbede.
15[?]. Ortus Vocab. (Shrewsbury MS.), Wolbede.
1601. Holland, Pliny, XXIX. v. II. 369. The Wooll beads or Caterpillers,… which are a kind of earthwormes…, all hairie, having many feet, and courbing archwise as they creepe.
1662. R. Venables, Exper. Angler, iii. 27. Those rough insects (which some call Wooll-beds, because of their wool-like outside, and rings of divers colours).
1681. Chetham, Angler’s Vade-m., iv. § 8 (1700), 35. Palmer-worm, Palmer-fly, Wooll-bed, and Cankers, Are all one Worm.
1787. Best, Angling (ed. 3), 18.
β. 1508. Dunbar, Tua Mariit Wemen, 89. Ane wallidrag, ane worme, ane auld wobat carle.
c. 1560. A. Scott, Poems (S.T.S.), xxxiv. 94. Swa ladeis will nocht sounȝe With waistit wowbattis rottin.
a. 1585. Montgomerie, Flyting, 268. Wanshapen woubet [v.r. wowbat, wolbet], of the weirds invyit. Ibid., 614. An warloch, an warwolfe, an voubet but haire.
1802. Sibbald, Chron. S. P., Gloss., Woubit, Oubit, one of those worms which appear as if covered with wool.
1809. Edin. Rev., XIV. 143. The hairy vowbet, or yeubit,… is the name given by boys [in Berwickshire] to the caterpillar of the tiger-moth.
γ. 1608. Topsell, Serpents, 103. The English-Northren-men call the hairie Catterpillers, Oubuts.
c. 1800. Ayrs. Gl. Surv. 693 (Jam.), Ubit, dwarfish.
1825. Jamieson, Oobit, a hairy worm, with alternate rings of black and dark yellow.
1851. Kingsley, Poems, The Oubit. It was an hairy oubit, sae proud he crept alang.
1861. J. Brown, Horæ Subs., Ser. II. 117. Very like a huge caterpillar or hairy oobit.
1865–. in dialect glossaries, etc. (see Eng. Dial. Dict.).
