Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a fat person (cite 1908 refers to a fat man’s stomach); also as term of address.

1823		J.F. Cooper Pioneers (1827) II 213: What’s that you say, you old, dried corn-stalk! you sapless tub!
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 21 May n.p.: ‘Listen, you old tub [etc]’.
1855		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 14 Apr. n.p.: What’s become of the ‘tub,’ Medora?
1891		A. Day Mysterious Beggar 254: That cursed wobble-tub wasn’t any old female at all.
1895		Mirror of Life 17 Aug. 11/1: Both [boxers] were as fat as pigs, yet these two tubs milled away [...] merrily.
1900		Houma Courier (LA) 8 Sept. 8/3: He’s a tub. Just look at the fat, old, gray badger as he waddles towards the ferry.
1908		E. Dyson ‘Two Battlers and a Bear’ in Lone Hand (Sydney) Sept. 549/1: ‘Have I come down t’ be parlormaid ’n’n kitchen Biddy to er sleepin’ beauty with er tub on him like er walrus?’.
1914		T.A. Dorgan Indoor Sports 6 June [synd. cartoon] Hey, Tub, lay off that stuff. Let him bid his own hand.
1918		‘Commander’ Clear the Decks! 177: Hello, Tubbo.
1928		D. Totheroh Burlesque 65: Did you see that big tub Gussie beatin’ it outer here?
1930		J.T. Farrell ‘A Hell of a Good Time’ in Short Stories (1937) 202: Did she turn out to be a tub! I say, did she!
1959		Kerouac letter 21 Feb. in Charters II (1999) 185: I’m getting old, I’m a fat tub now.
1963		B. Hecht Gaily, Gaily 133: The overweight Fay Templeton of Pinafore, singing, ‘I’m called Little Buttercup,’ for which we had a saloon version, ‘I’m called little butter-tub.’.
1965		F. Pollini Glover 165: ‘I think he’s got the old eye on you —’ She giggled. ‘That little tub!’.
1987		T. Wolfe Bonfire of the Vanities 126: Even that fat court officer over there, that tub Kaminsky.