Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Blubber |
BlubberAdjective1. Swollen with fat; "blubber cheeks"; "blubber lips"; "a coarse blubbery individual". Noun1. An insulating layer of fat under the skin of whales and other large marine mammals; used as a source of oil. Verb1. Cry or whine with snuffling; "Stop snivelling--you got yourself into this mess!". 2. Utter while crying. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "blubber" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1615. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
19th Century Satire | The useful product of a dead whale. The useless product of a live baby. Source: Foolish Dictionary, 1904. |
Literature | Blubber To cry like a child, with noise and slavering. Connected with slobber, slaver. "I play the boy, and blubber in thy bosom." Otway: Venice Preserved, i. 1. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Slang in 1811 | BLUBBER. The mouth.--I have stopped the cull's blubber; I have stopped the fellow's mouth, meant either by gagging or murdering him. Source: 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Blubber is a thick layer of insulating fat found under the skin of cetaceans and various other animals living in extremely cold climates (sealss, walruses).Blubber forms an important part of the traditional eskimo diet because of its high energy value. One of the major reasons for the whaling trade was the collection of whale blubber. This was rendered down into oil in giant cauldrons or later, in vats on factory ships.
Blubber is also the name of Luke's blubbering bear companion, co-driver of the Arkansas Chugabug in Hanna-Barbera's Wacky Races.
See also:
List of fictional bears
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Blubber."
Synonyms: BlubberSynonyms: blubbery (adj), blubber out (v), sniffle (v), snivel (v), snuffle (v). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Blemish | Freckle, mole, macula, patch, blotch, birthmark; blobber lip, blubber lip; blain, maculation; scar, wem; pustule; whelk; excrescence, pimple; (protuberance). |
Lamentation | Cry, weep, sob, greet, blubber, pipe, snivel, bibber, whimper, pule; pipe one's eye; drop tears, shed tears, drop a tear, shed a tear; melt into tears, burst into tears; fondre en larmes; cry oneself blind, cry one's eyes out; yammer. |
Oil | Noun: oil, fat, butter, cream, grease, tallow, suet, lard, dripping exunge, blubber; glycerin, stearin, elaine, oleagine; soap; soft soap, wax, cerement; paraffin, spermaceti, adipocere; petroleum, mineral, mineral rock, mineral crystal, mineral oil; vegetable oil, colza oil, olive oil, salad oil, linseed oil, cottonseed oil, soybean oil, nut oil; animal oil, neat's foot oil, train oil; ointment, unguent, liniment; aceite, amole, Barbados tar; fusel oil, grain oil, rape oil, seneca oil; hydrate |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Blubber |
| English words defined with "blubber": Blobber, Blubbered, Blubbering ♦ Carvel ♦ Fenks, Flense ♦ Junk hook ♦ Krang, Kranging hook ♦ sea horse, seahorse, seal oil, Speck falls, Specksioneer, sperm oil ♦ train oil ♦ walrus, Whale bird, whale oil. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "blubber": Blubber Cheeks ♦ TO BLUBBER, TO SPORT BLUBBER. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "blubber": Train oil. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Amelie has one friend, Blubber. Alas the home environment has made Blubber suicidal (Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain, Le; writing credit: Guillaume Laurant; Jean-Pierre Jeunet) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Large fat walrus - Odobenus rosmarus divergens - showing extent of blubber deposits. Credit: NOAA's Ark (Animals). |  | "Apparatus for cutting blubber." Inspiration for the tomato slicing kitchen magician. In: "An account of the Arctic regions with a history and description of the northern whale-fishery", by W. Scoresby. 1820. P. 588, Vol. II. Plate XXII. Library Call Number G742 .S42 1820 . Credit: Treasures of the Library. |
 | Fig. 1. Blubber mincing knife. Fig. 2. Boarding knife. Fig. 3. Monkey-belt Fig. 4. Wooden toggle. Fig. 5. Chain-strap. Fig. 6. Throat-chain Fig. 7. Fin toggle. Fig. 8. Head-strap. Fig. 9. Blubber hook. Credit: National Marine Fisheries Historical Image Collection. |  | Stripping sea-elephant blubber and rolling it in barrels to try-works Southwest beach, Herd's Island Drawing by H. W. Elliott after Capt. H. C. Chester. Credit: National Marine Fisheries Historical Image Collection. |
 | Whaling in Eskimo land: a combined sport-festival--after the perilous sea hunt, they cut up blubber for the feast at the dance. Credit: Library of Congress. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| "Blubber" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 85.00% of the time. "Blubber" is used about 40 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 85% | 34 | 59,261 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 10% | 4 | 175,879 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 5% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Total | 100.00% | 40 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "blubber": blubber finger ♦ blubber lip ♦ blubber out ♦ blubber out smth. ♦ Scandinavian blubber finger. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "blubber": blubber-lipped. | |
Ending with "blubber": Sea-blubber. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
blubber | 36 |
blubber busters | 17 |
blubber buster | 7 |
blubber whale | 6 |
black blubber | 5 |
blubber butt | 4 |
blubber judy blume | 3 |
blubber butt.com | 2 |
blubber run | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "blubber"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | dhjamë balene, dënesë, dënes (sob). (various references) | |
Arabic | نحب (lament, wail), قال وهو إنتحب, ورم الوجه, إنتحاب, إنتحب (squeal, wail, whine, yammer), دهن الحوت, بدانة (corpulence, fat, fatness, fleshiness, obesity, portliness, rotundity, stoutness). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | рева (bark, bellow, cry, heehaw, hoot, pipe, roar, squall, trumpet, yell), китова мас (sperm oil, spermaceti), медуза (jellyfish), плача (complain, cry, lament, pipe, sob, weep). (various references) | |
Chinese | 哭泣 (Cried, Crying). (various references) | |
Czech | bulit, breèet (weep), špek (beef). (various references) | |
Danish | tykke læber (blubber lips), spækfinger (blubber finger, Scandinavian blubber finger, seal finger, sealer's finger, sealers'finger, Spaek finger, speck finger, spekkfinger), sælfinger (blubber finger, Scandinavian blubber finger, seal finger, sealer's finger, sealers'finger, Spaek finger, speck finger, spekkfinger). (various references) | |
Farsi | هایهای گریستن , چاق شدن (Batten, Plump), چربی اوردن , چربی بالن وسایرپستانداران دریاءی , کف (Apron, Bottom, Foam, Insole, Scum, Silt, Slag), حباب (Blob, Boll, Bubble, Globe), الچروبه , باصداگریستن . (various references) | |
Finnish | valaanrasva (whale oil), tilittää (account for, render an account), itkeä pillittää (snivel). (various references) | |
French | blanc de baleine, pleurer comme un veau, pleurer (bleed), graisse de poisson, chialer. (various references) | |
German | walfischspeck. (various references) | |
Greek | κλαίω γοερά (blub), κλαψουρίζω (snivel), ιχθυέλαιο (fish oil), πρησμένοσ (bloated, swollen, tumescent, turgid), λίποσ φάλαινασ. (various references) | |
Hebrew | מדוזה (jellyfish), לבכות (bewail, cry, deplore, howl, lament, mourn, snivel, weep), שומן לויתן. (various references) | |
Hungarian | bálnazsír (whale oil). (various references) | |
Indonesian | menangis (bawl, boohoo, cry, weep), lapisan lemak. (various references) | |
Italian | pianto rumoroso (bawl), piangere rumorosamente (bawl), grasso di balena. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 脂肪 (fat, grease). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | しぼう (ambition, death, desire, fat, grease, mortality, ovary, wish), げいし. (various references) | |
Korean | 고래기름. (various references) | |
Manx | sahll blennick, chiu (heavy, intense; foggy, stout, thick, turbid). (various references) | |
Norwegian | spekk (lard). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | ubberblay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | berreiro (hubbub, row, uproar, vociferation, yawl), lágrimas (brine, rheum, water), inchado (swollen), gordura (fat, grease), debulhar-se em lágrimas, choro (cry, crying, moan, weep, weeping), chorar ruidosamente, choradeira (fret, whimper), óleo de baleia (train oil). (various references) | |
Romanian | unturã (fat, grease, lard), umflat (baggy, bloated, bombastic, bulging, dropsical, flush, gummy, high-flown, inflated, long, puffy, swollen, tumid, turgid), plânset (cry), plânge în hohote (cry away, sob), gros (abundantly, big, bulk, bulky, coarse, compact, densely, gross, highly, podgy, quod, stiff, stout, thick, voluminous). (various references) | |
Russian | рыдать (sob, sobbed), рев (howl, rave, roar), плач (cry, lachrymation, mourning, plaint, weeping), плакать ворвань, плакать (weep, cry). (various references) | |
Scottish | saill (cure, fat, fat or fatness, fatness, pickle, salt thou, season). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | plakati (cry, sob, weep), kitova mast (whale oil), jecati (moan, sob), izgovoriti jecajući. (various references) | |
Spanish | medusa (jellyfish), lloriqueo (groan), llorar (cry, weep), grasa de ballena, gimoteo (whimper, whine, whining). (various references) | |
Swedish | snyfta fram. (various references) | |
Thai | ร้องไห้ฟูมฟาย. (various references) | |
Turkish | balina yağı (sperm, sperm oil, spermaceti, train oil, whale oil), bağıra bağıra ağlamak, zırlamak (boohoo, pipe one's eye, pule), hüngür hüngür ağlamak (boohoo, cry one's eyes out, cry sobbingly). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | ревіти (bawl, bluster), ревіння (bellow, howl, howling, rave, roaring), ворвань (whale oil), пузиритися (bubble), плач (cry, lachrymation, lament, weep, weeping). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | vều, sự khóc sưng cả mắt, mỡ cá voi con sứa nước mắt. (various references) | |
Welsh | braster morfil, wylo (cry, weep), nadu (bray, cry out, hinder, howl, stop), gweflo. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "blubber": blubbered, blubbering, blubbers, blubbery. (additional references) | |
| |
"Blubber" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Baumber, Bleiberg, Bouberc, bubbeh, bubber, flubber, glubber. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "blubber" (pronounced blu"ber) |
| 4 | -l u" b er | lubber. |
| 3 | -u" b er | rubber, scrubber. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: bubbler. | |
| Words within the letters "b-b-b-e-l-r-u" | |
-1 letter: bubble, burble, lubber, rubble. | |
-2 letters: bluer, blurb, ruble. | |
-3 letters: bleb, blub, blue, blur, bulb, burl, lube, lure, rube, rule. | |
-4 letters: bel, bub, bur, ebb, leu, reb, rub, rue, urb. | |
-5 letters: be, el, er, re. | |
| Words containing the letters "b-b-b-e-l-r-u" | |
+1 letter: blubbers, blubbery, bubblers, bubblier. | |
+2 letters: blubbered. | |
+3 letters: blubbering, scrubbable. | |
+5 letters: blabbermouth. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
