Also 6–7 cubb(e. [Origin unknown.
It has been compared with a rare Old Irish word cuib dog, but no historical connection has been traced.]
1. orig. A young fox.
1530. Palsgr., 211/1. Cubbe, a yong foxe.
1552. Huloet, Cubbe or yonge ffoxe, vulpecula.
1575. Turberv., Venerie, 181. When you have taken the old foxes or badgerdes, and that there is nothing left in the earth but the yong cubbes.
1648. Hunting of Fox, 13. His skin … when he is a young Cubbe is usually of a darker colour.
1880. Times, 2 Nov., 4/6. No cub is he, but a full-brushed, high conditioned, dog-fox.
2. By extension: The young of the bear and of other wild beasts; also of the whale.
For the young of the bear, lion, etc., the earlier word was whelp, as in all versions of the Bible from Wyclif to 1611.
1596. Shaks., Merch. V., II. i. 29. Plucke the yong sucking Cubs from the she Beare.
1645. Waller, Poems, 54 (J.). Two mighty Whales … One as a mountaine vast, and with her came A Cub.
1683. Burnet, trans. More’s Utopia (1684), 13. The old Crow loves his Young, and the Ape his Cubs.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), II. 334. The lion, or tyger, have seldom above two cubs at a litter.
1823. W. Scoresby, Jrnl. Whale-Fishery, 148. The smallest animals [whales] of the species, mere cubs or ‘suckers.’
1829. Scott, Anne of G., ii. With the fury of a bear which had been robbed of her cubs.
b. transf.
1769. Gray, Jrnl. in Lakes, Wks. 1884, I. 253. Passed by the side of Skiddaw, and its cub called Latterig.
3. fig. An undeveloped, uncouth, unpolished youth.
Compared to the young of the bear, which was fabled to be born in a shapeless condition, and afterwards licked into shape by the mother.
1601. Shaks., Twel. N., V. i. 167. O thou dissembling Cub: what wilt thou be When time hath sow’d a grizzle on thy case?
1687. Congreve, Old Bach., IV. viii. A country squire, with the equipage of a wife and two daughters … But, oh gad! two such unlicked cubs!
1723. Steele, Consc. Lovers, I. i. Like a bashful, great, awkward cub as you were.
1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, I. 64. He thinks it necessary to be civil to the young cub.
1884. Hunter & Whyte, My Ducats & My Daughter, iv. 62. I know the young cubs you ’ll have to teach.
† 4. A name formerly given at St. Thomas’s Hospital, London, to the surgeon’s assistant. (The name ‘dresser’ was substituted in 1738.)
1698. St. Thomas’s Hosp. Rec. (MS.), 18 June. That no Surgeons cubs or persons of that nature do keep their hatts on before the Physicians or Surgeons of the house. Ibid. (1702), 12 Feb. Orders for Cubbs. That no Surgeon have more than three at one time.
5. Comb., as cub-fox; † cub-drawn a., drawn (or ? sucked dry) by its cubs; cub-hunting, hunting young foxes at the beginning of the season; also cub-hunt sb. and v.
1605. Shaks., Lear, III. i. 12. This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch.
1684. T. Goddard, Plato’s Demon, 237. Our old Committe man, had transform’d himself into a little Cubb Fox.
1858. Froude, Hist. Eng., III. 121. Entertaining a party of friends for cub-hunting.
1870. Blaine, Encycl. Rural Sports, 489. It is not common to cub hunt in the country intended for the winter practice. Ibid. A September cub hunt.
