Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) to grab, to steal, to apprehend.

1825		J. Neal Brother Jonathan III 144: He [...] sprang up – gobbled on the clothes, half military, half civil, as they were.
1849		Gallinipper Dec. in Hall (1856) 228: Alas! how dearly for the fun they paid, / Whom the Profs gobbled, and the Tutors too.
1856		B.H. Hall College Words (rev. edn) 228: gobble [...] to seize; to lay hold of; to appropriate; nearly the same as to collar.
1863		Dundee Courier 27 July 3/1: In the Federal army a man who is captured is described as being ‘snavelled’ or ‘gobbled’.
1873		Vanity Fair (UK) Oct. 310/2: Since Dr. Mackay’s book was published, the slang phrases and peculiar expressions of this country have multiplied, many of which became popular during the war – we need mention only three or four of these [...] gobble (to take prisoners), secesh, etc.
1880		Caldwell Post 9 Sept. in Miller & Snell Why the West was Wild 249: Offenders have generally been ‘gobbled’.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Aug. 4/2: With Mr. Service offering gun-boats for clearing the Red Sea littoral, Sir Thomas M’Ilwraith gobbling Pacific islands, and Sir Alexander Stuart writing ‘pigeon’ English, the British public may rest assured that its honour and interests are safe in Australian hands.
1890		Sporting Times 22 Mar. 1/4: There is woe at the Licentious Wittlers’ Asylum, where they’ve burgled the chapel, gobbled the collection boxes and all the ecclesiastical wine.
1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Sept. 16/3: Out of the six adjoining stations, two had been gobbled by banks and their owner-managers kicked out, as bare of cash we were the runs of grass.
1914		Jackson & Hellyer Vocab. Criminal Sl. 38: gobbled [...] Arrested.
1931		K.C. Times 23 Oct. n.p.: His oldest son [...] was captured by a school ma’am. No sooner was his second son of marriageable age than a school ma’am gobbled him [DA].
1952		W.R. Burnett Vanity Row 216: ‘This town’s a gambling gold mine, always has been. [...] The big outside boys would just love to gobble it’.
1962		H.S. Thompson letter 7 Feb. in Proud Highway (1997) 317: Gobbling my funds.

2. (also gobble off) to fellate; thus gobbling n., fellatio [play on eat v. (4)].

c.1900		‘Ramrod’ Nocturnal Meeting 93: She won’t resist when she sees her chums gobbling up the naked cocks.
1928		in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 80: He tracked his man down / To the heart of the town, / And gobbled him off in the duomo.
c.1935		‘Jesse James in “Might”’ [comic strip] in B. Adelman Tijuana Bibles (1997) 116: Gobble that thin good and I might give you something else.
1941		G. Legman ‘Lang. of Homosexuality’ Appendix VII in Henry Sex Variants.
1955		C. Himes ‘Friends’ Coll. Stories (1990) 270: Rat! Crawlin’ ’round here with his clothes off tryna find a stiff to gobble.
1973		‘Shagging Matilda’ in B. Tate Bastard from the Bush (1982) 42: Down came three troopers, showing off their thoroughbreds; / Up jumped Matilda and gobbled them with glee. / Now their cocks are covered in pox / ’Cause they shoved it up her sloppy box – / Who’ll come a-shagging Matilda with me?
1981		S. Berkoff Decadence in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 19: How simply fab divine and rare to gobble the waiter with your husband lying there.
1989		M. Amis London Fields 272: ‘Dirty?’ said Guy. ‘Yeah. You know. Like gobbling and that.’.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 61: He clutched her ears as she gobbled.
2000		T. Udo Vatican Bloodbath 80: I’m a goddam fucken cocksucking, shit stabbing, jism-gobbling hard-core homofuckensexual.
2003		(ref. to 1960s) in Baker & Stanley Hello Sailor! 109: When the fellas were sleeping she’d go round and lift the sheets and give them a blow job, and that was called a phantom gobbler.
2011		Observer 6 Mar. 🌐 The voracious Bill Clinton, who gobbled cheeseburgers and was gobbled in turn by Monica Lewinsky.
2012		(con. 1943) G.S. Manson Irish Fandango [ebook] ‘[O]ne old brother would even get ’em pissed as farts on communion wine and gobble ’em off’.
2017		A. Parks Bloody January 52: ‘[G]obbling off some salesman from Newcastle in the back of his Cortina’.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 87: [I] saw Joi gobble Steve the Stud, tonsil-deep.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 27: The rakish rosbif racketeer she gaily gobbled.