daub
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /dɔːb/
ipa: /dɔb/
ipa: /dɑb/
rhymes: -ɔːb
Forms: form: daubs
form: daubing
form: daubed
form: daubed
Etymology: From Middle English daub (noun), from Middle English dauben (“to plaster or whitewash; cover with clay; bespatter”, verb), from Old Northern French dauber (“to whitewash; plaster”), of uncertain origin. Probably from Latin dealbāre (“to whiten thoroughly”).
Senses: examples: text: The artist just seemed to daub on paint at random and suddenly there was a painting.
text: […] she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch […]
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 2:3:
text: […] Mrs. Gibson could not well come up to the girl’s bedroom every night and see that she daubed her face and neck over with the cosmetics so carefully provided for her.
ref: 1864 August – 1866 January, [Elizabeth] Gaskell, “The Bride at Home”, in Wives and Daughters. An Every-day Story. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], published 1866, →OCLC, page 180:
text: An artist friend fitted her out with his castoff palettes, brushes, and colors, and she daubed away, producing pastoral and marine views such as were never seen on land or sea.
ref: 1868–1869, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, Little Women: […], (please specify |part=1 or 2), Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC:
text: […] as he watched, [the motorcar] came up the snow-covered road, green and brown painted, in broken patches of daubed color, the windows blued over so that you could not see in […]
ref: 1940, Ernest Hemingway, chapter 15, in For Whom the Bell Tolls, London: Jonathan Cape, page 185:
text: Blood was running to her shoe, and her stocking was torn in a jagged hole. […] she wet toilet paper and daubed until the red was gone from her stocking, but the red kept coming.
ref: 1952, Patricia Highsmith, chapter 3, in The Price of Salt, Norton, published 2004, page 39:
text: They were expecting to see me, she said, daubing paint on the canvas and stepping back to gauge the effect.
ref: 1969, Chaim Potok, The Promise, New York: Fawcett Crest, Book 3, Chapter 16, p. 379:
text: Cylindrical lanterns daubed in red writing hung at intervals across wooden beams […]
ref: 2007, Tan Twan Eng, The Gift of Rain, New York: Weinstein Books, Book 1, Chapter 21, p. 226:
text: Unfortunately, one side of the new five-car train is daubed in graffiti, having been vandalised in Wembley Yard, en route from Switzerland.
ref: 2023 March 8, “Network News: First Tyne & Wear Metro '555' already 'tagged'”, in RAIL, number 978, page 9:
synonyms: apply
coat
cover
plaster
smear
glosses: To apply (something) to a surface in hasty or crude strokes.
examples: text: […] a lame, imperfect Piece, rudely daub’d over with too little Reflection and too much haste.
ref: 1695, Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy, translated by John Dryden, Observations on the Art of Painting, London: W. Rogers, page 201:
text: If a Picture is daub’d with many bright and glaring Colours, the vulgar Eye admires it as an excellent Piece […]
ref: 1725, Isaac Watts, chapter 3, in Logick: Or, The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry after Truth, […], 2nd edition, London: […] John Clark and Richard Hett, […], Emanuel Matthews, […], and Richard Ford, […], published 1726, →OCLC, part II (Of Judgment and Proposition), section 1, page 189:
text: 1826, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, An Essay on Mind, Book I, in The Earlier Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1826-1833, London: Bartholomew Robson, 1878, pp. 25-26,
If some gay picture, vilely daubed, were seen
With grass of azure, and a sky of green,
Th’impatient laughter we’d suppress in vain,
And deem the painter jesting, or insane.
text: […] this stretch of the shore is still filthy with trash; high-school gangs still daub huge scandalous words on its beach-wall, and seashells are still less easy to find here than discarded rubbers.
ref: 1964, Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man, Vintage, published 2010:
glosses: To paint (a picture, etc.) in a coarse or unskilful manner.
examples: text: So smooth he daub’d his vice with show of virtue,
ref: c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene v]:
text: No flattering praises daub my stone,
My frailties and my faults to hide;
ref: 1820, John Clare, “The Universal Epitaph”, in Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery, London: Taylor & Hessey, page 91:
glosses: To cover with a specious or deceitful exterior; to disguise; to conceal.
examples: text: I can safely say, however, that without any daubing at all, I am, very sincerely, Your very affectionate, humble servant,
ref: 1766, Tobias Smollett, Travels through France and Italy, London: R. Baldwin, Volume 2, Letter 28, p. 73:
glosses: To flatter excessively or grossly.
examples: text: 1697, John Dryden, “On the Three Dukes killing the Beadle on Sunday Morning, Febr. the 26th, 1670/1” in John Denham et al., Poems on affairs of state from the time of Oliver Cromwell, to the abdication of K. James the Second, London, p. 148,
Yet shall Whitehall the Innocent, the Good,
See these men dance all daub’d with Lace and Blood.
text: […] whenever they came in order to pay those islanders a visit, [they] were generally very well dressed, and very poor, daubed with lace, but all the gilding on the outside.
ref: 1762, Oliver Goldsmith, The Citizen of the World, London, Volume 1, Letter 50, p. 224:
glosses: To put on without taste; to deck gaudily.
topics: bingo
games
glosses: To mark spots on a bingo card, using a dauber.
Derived terms: word: bedaub
word: daubable
english: unskilled painter
translation: unskilled painter
word: dauber
word: daubery
word: daubingly
word: daubster
word: dauby
word: redaub
word: undaubed
Related terms: dab