bob, v.² — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

bob v.²

[SE bob, a light, tapping blow or bob, to move up and down; there may be a pun on SE bob, to cut an animal’s tail/tail n. (2)]

1. of a man, to have sexual intercourse; ext. in phr. play at bob-cherry.

1593		Passionate Morrice (1876) 85: Beware when the woman wooes! if she be perceiued to be forward to some dispositions she shall not want the offering of a bob; so that the bobbing bable shall bob the foole with her own curious choice.
c.1604		T. Heywood Wise-Woman of Hogsdon III i: ‘I am finely bobbed.’ [i.e. tricked] ‘I hope you will not bobb me.’.
1608		Beaumont & Fletcher Cupid’s Revenge V i: A plague upon my bashfulness, I had bobb’d her long ago else.
c.1617		Fletcher Chances I vii: If he be a bobbing, ’Tis not my care can cure him: To morrow morning I shall have further knowledge from a Surgeon’s – Where he lyes moor’d, to mend his leaks.
1653		Urquhart (trans.) Rabelais III 7: They so lustily bobb’d it with their Female Consorts [...] that they had drained [...] their Spermatick Vessels.
1660		Wandring Whore II 10: Nor playing at Bobb-cherry with his maid.
1675		T. Duffet Psyche Debauch’d III ii: The Quean looks shy on’t, will she bob?
a.1796		‘Erroch Brae’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) IV 271: Yet still his pintle held the grip, / He bobbed me weel the holy man.
1863		in T.P. Lowry ‘Jeff Davis Dream’ Stories the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell (1994) 50: His cock into his monkey went / His arse it went to bobbing —.

2. (UK Und.) to work.

c.1850

Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict. n.p.: Bobbing at Jacob’s ladder working at the treadmill.