bob, v.³ — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

bob v.³

[SE bob (up and down)]

to act in a nervous manner; thus bobbing n .

1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 88: ‘What’s Bobbing?’ ‘Oh . . . sort of bobbing; getting nerves, worrying.’.
1948		Dinah Washington ‘Long John Blues’ 🎵 But I think I feel it bobbin’.

SE in slang uses

In phrases

bob and weave (v.) [boxing imagery]

to avoid direct action, either confrontation, explanation, aggression etc.

2002		Guardian 3 Oct. 🌐 Saddam Hussein, as usual, is bobbing and weaving. We should call his bluff.
2012		R.A. Dickey Wherever I Wind Up 196: Mostly in that first meeting I bob and weave and give him inauthentic boilerplate and platitudes.

bob around (v.) [note Dict. Americanisms (1951): ‘The popularity, and possibly the origin of this expression may have been occasioned by a popular song “Bobbing Around” sung by Stephen C. Masseet, a minstrel, in California mining camps during the fifties’]

to move quickly from place to place.

1855		Carroll Free Press (Carrolton, OH) 22 Nov. 3/3: O Sam’s a funny boy, he goes / Bobbing around, around, around, / Loves his friends and lams his toes, / As he goes bobbing around .
c.1865		‘Bobbing around!’ in Fred Shaw’s Champion Comic Melodist 19: The air is old, but the words are new, / For I’ve been bobbing around.
1869		J.R. Browne Adventures in Apache Country 182: She had prospected awhile in Australia, and bobbed around Frisco for the last few years.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 585: Bob, to, around, to make frequent calls upon a number of friends, is probably as much English slang as American. ‘Bobbing around’ is, however, a favorite expression in the United States.
1884		Louisiana Democrat (Alexandria, LA) 23 Dec. 3/3: A man in Arkansas [who] was bobbing around in a lively manner ot organize a railroad company.
1896		Hull Dly Mail 1 Sept. 3/2: ‘Bobbing around’ Hull we also came into contact with another fistic exponent, Billy Ellis.
1915		Day Book (Chicago) 21 Oct. 12/1: These boys we see nowadays are so busy bobbing around to keep from getting hit they never set.

bob on (v.) [SE bob v.; the image of a cork bobbing on choppy water]

(orig. milit.) to await anxiously.

1922		‘J.H. Ross’ Mint (1955) 89: I’m bobbing on not getting that intelligent job from him!
1925		Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 29: BOBBING ON, anticipating or expecting something [...] with the sense of looking forward to something unpleasant.

bob one’s baloney (v.)

see bop one’s baloney under baloney n.

bob up (v.)

to appear (unexpectedly).

1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 21 Mar. 6/2: Alderman ’Anley Barnett, of glorious Parliamentary memory, bobbed serenely up, and, with all the native modesty of former years, proposed himself as a fit and proper person to fill the first mayoral chair.
1894		Courier (Lincoln, NE) 17 Nov. 1/2: A vote would bob up for C.O. Whedon every once in a while.
1902		Ade Girl Proposition 82: Thus she threw them into the Scrap Heap as fast as they bobbed up.
1912		Day Book (Chicago) 31 May 26/2: Every once in a while Rev. James H. Gray would disappear, and somewhere in the West Virginia mountains James H. Graham would bob up.
1920		‘Sapper’ Bulldog Drummond 198: He always bobs up somehow.
1931		D. Runyon ‘Breach of Promise’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 16: When I am in Mindy’s restaurant [...] who bobs up but Harry the Horse.
1946		S. Jackson An Indiscreet Guide to Soho 63: If you spend any length of time in Soho, the same faces are apt to bob up.

bob v.3

SE in slang uses

In phrases

bob v.³