Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a husband.

1688		E. Ravenscroft London Cuckolds 28: Oh my hubby, dear, dear, dear hubby .
1715		S. Centlivre Wife Well Manag’d Act I: Go, go, you are a naughty Hubby.
1742		N. Hooke Sarah-Ad 14: My poor dear Hubby was dismist.
1772		G. Stevens ‘Chastity’ in Songs Comic and Satyrical 160: What cou’d Hubby do then? what cou’d then Hubby do?
1798		T. Morton Secrets Worth Knowing Epilogue n.p.: The wife poor thing, at first so blithe and chubby, Scarce knows again her lover in her hubby.
1801		C. Dibdin Yngr Song Smith 130: New wife advis’d hubby to sharpen his wit.
1811		J. Poole Hamlet Travestie II iii: A good-looking, fine strapping fellow;—Now, madam, this once was your hubby.
1830		W.T. Moncrieff Heart of London III i: Hubby and I are arguing.
1853		T. Haliburton Sam Slick’s Wise Saws I 241: I don’t wonder ‘Hubby,’ as she called her husband, fell in love with her.
1855		Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Feb. 21/1: ‘[T]hat abominable hubby of mine, for we are really married, says [etc]’.
1856		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 25 Oct. n.p.: You swore never to give yourself up to any other except his (hub’s) voluptuous desires.
1866		H.L. Williams Gay Life in N.Y. 100: The spoiled doll, who knows so well how to coax and please her dear ‘hubby’.
1875		‘Aliph Cheem’ Lays of Ind (1905) 55: And she felt her dear old hubby / Shiver underneath the touch.
1876		A.B. Sedgwick My Walking Photograph 9: Hubby-dubby! Don’t you know that you have a wart on your nose. [Ibid.] 22: What a dear little hubby, to be sure!
1879		G.R. Sims Dagonet Ballads 86: It’s a fortnight, at least, since the pair ran away, / And he’s taken her back, like a dutiful hub.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 21 Mar. 22/3: Worse than that, if a wife, to relieve her / Bad feelings, gets slanging her hub., / And he splits her right down with a cleaver, / Or thumps her to death with a club [etc.].
1886		Sporting Times 10 Apr. 2/1: ‘I am the longest tempered man ever known.’ ‘Of course you are, dear, there is no end to your temper.’ Collapse of hubby.
1887		G. Devol Forty Years a Gambler 259: It was fun to see the young bride rushing around after her old hubby.
1890		Nat. Police Gaz. 7 May n.p.: [headline] Fretful Females / They Are Not Satisfied With Their Lots / And they make trouble / A Woman Skips from Hub and Nineteen Kids.
1891		G.R. Sims ‘A Tale of a Tub’, Dagonet Ditties 148: I hear him in his dressing-room, / My Willie dear, my hub’.
1891		N.Z. Observer 18 July 4/1: Her hub caught them red-hnded. His Titled Nibs escaped through a window. She simply [...] laughed at her hubby.
1894		J. Astley Fifty Years (2nd edn) II 177: The hearty welcome with which she and her ‘hubby’ always greet their friends.
1900		Marvel 15 May 14: Mrs. B [...] told her hubby to do as he pleased.
1901		T. & G. LeBrunn [perf. Marie Lloyd] Come Along, Let’s Make Up 🎵 Seated down to breakfast, little Mrs. Youngwife / With her loving hub is chatting now.
1902		Truth (Sydney) 31 Aug. 8/3: And he fetches his ole woman, / Who persisted, don’tcherknow, / Comin’ with her hub to Sidney.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 1 Jan. 4/7: When hubby drives off for the city, his naughty rib telephones to the best boy [...] One of these days hub will turn back from half way and let himself into the joke.
1907		C.E. Mulford Bar-20 ix: Then when he got woozy one time she up an’ told him that she had got a nice long letter from her hubby.
1908		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Barter’ Sporting Times 1 Feb. 1/3: I’ve been reading that some minx informed a married woman lately / That she’d give her a cool thousand for her hub.
1909		A.J. Mills ‘What a Shame’ 🎵 But hubby sold his trousers when once he twigged her game And now he’s wearing a Scotchsman’s kilt. What a shame.
1917		‘Henry Handel Richardson’ Aus. Felix (1971) 69: And she with a hubby of her own, too!
1919		A. Baer Two & Three 16 Apr. [synd. col.] The lady who is giving up her new Easter bonnet so that hubbo can pay the rent.
1920		A. Baer Marriage a Success? 14 Sept. [synd. col.] If hubbo doesn't make enough to support a wife stylishly, she starts crabbing.
1920		Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Feb. 16/3: [cartoon caption] hubby What do I think of him? I think [etc].
1922		Joyce Ulysses 356: Then little chits of girls, height of a shilling in coppers, with little hubbies.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 379: Her hub fifty odd and a methodist.
1926		Ethel Waters ‘Ev’rybody Mess Aroun’’ 🎵 A deacon called on Sister Brown, / Thought her hubby was out of town.
1927		W. Winchell Your Broadway & Mine 15 June [synd. col.] On the hub’s return one evening he found [etc].
1930		E. Glyn Flirt and Flapper 32: Sometimes you can get a million extra from the first hub.
		E. Freeman ‘The Whirling Hub’ in Afro-American (Baltimore, MD) 13 Apr. 15/3: What estranged hubby is said to have acted as the stooge of the gendarmes.
1936		‘George Orwell’ Keep The Aspidistra Flying (1962) 11: Q.T. Sauce Keeps Hubby Smiling.
1936		D. Burley in Chicago Defender 4 July 10: Mildred Page Adams’ suit for divorce against her hub.
1940		F. Sargeson ‘An Englishwoman Abroad’ in A Man And His Wife (1944) 59: Her hubby’s waiting to meet her in Geneva.
1948		‘Digg Mee’ ‘Observation Post’ in N.Y. Age 24 Aug. 10/6: So hubby doesn’t live with her any more.
1950		Fads & Fancies 1 19/2: Those men saw sufficient of my undies to nickname hubby ‘Blackie’.
1956		H. Ellison ‘Nedra at f:5.6’ in Pulling a Train’ (2012) [ebook] None of that chubby housewife trying to hold onto her fat-assed hubby by learning [...] ‘imaginative sex’ fantasies bullshit.
1959		A. Zugsmith Beat Generation 11: But hubby Charley might not buy her bruises, if someone didn’t holler cop.
1966		P. White Solid Mandala (1976) 12: Both my hubby and me was country people.
1975		L. Rosten Dear ‘Herm’ 62: Because of your being an ex-classmate of my hubby.
1982		H. Beaton Outside In I ii: How’s your hubbie, love?
1989		Viz June/July 4: My hubby never listens to a word I say.
1999		J. Cameron Brown Bread in Wengen [ebook] Shared cremation with hubbie.
1999		J. Cameron Brown Bread in Wengen [ebook] Diana wanting us there finding for sure who whacked her hub.
1999		P. Temple Black Tide (2012) [ebook] That hairdresser client whose hubby did a runner with the Tattslotto win?
1999		Guardian Editor 18 June 20: My hubby can keep his mistress, I’m off!
2004		C. Hiaasen Skinny Dip 37: Hubby’s not in line for a penny, right?
2005		Jade LB Keisha the Sket (2021) 75: ‘I need 2 [...] go c ma hubbayyyyy!’.
2018		Unknown T ‘Homerton B’ 🎵 How could you make that your hubby?
2019		L. Moylett Twitter 6 Apr. 🌐 Ahem I’m afraid my hubby is ever so subtly pointing he took the pic - I didn’t credit him - what’s yours is mine mentality!!
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 33: Wayward wives and whorehound hubbies.

2. (US campus, also husband) a steady boyfriend.

1989		P. Munro Sl. U. 112: husband/hubby really serious boyfriend.
2005		Jade LB Keisha the Sket (2021) 36: I gt lashed twice, gt a hubby an shanked sum1.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 293/2: husband a male lover, usually more than just a one-night stand, but can ironically refer to a short-term sexual partner.