Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. an idiot, a fool, an incompetent; a country bumpkin; also affectionate use; thus as v., to act irritatingly.

1919		Cortelyou Arizona to the Huns 88: [He] was a great big awkward ‘goob.’ [HDAS].
1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl. §391.3: rustic, bumpkin, goober grabber or grabbler.
1981		D.E. Miller Bk of Jargon (list of tennis terms) 244: Goofer and goober. A loser, not only in fact and habit, but also by preference and temperament.
1987		Eble Campus Sl. Oct. 3: goobette – female goober.
1989		Tuscaloosa (AL) News 8 Sept. A-7: ‘I just can’t bring myself to go out with that dweeb.’ Syn. see dork, drip, goob.
1990		Eble Campus Sl. Oct. 2: goob – act in an annoying or otherwise unacceptable way.
1992		D. Burke Street Talk 2 2: I can’t believe you’re scamming on that goob! [Ibid.] 19: Don’t be such a goober!
2003		N. Green Angel of Montague Street (2004) 224: These goobers from the FBI still camped out, down across the street from here?
2014		C. Eble (ed.) UNC-CH Campus Sl. Spring 2014.
2023		B. Dreyer on Twitter 23 Apr. 🌐 Replying to @KevinMKruse I’m only shocked that this goober put the ‘methinks’ on the correct end of the Hamlet quote. Almost no one does.

2. (Aus./N.Z./US, also goobie) a gob of phlegm; thus as v., to drool (see cit. 1987).

1968		G. Slatter Pagan Game (1969) 230: Hoiking goobs smack into the river.
1969		Oz 20 31/2: They get in a long line and spit a goober in each guy’s mouth all the way along the line passing it on.
1975		J. Carr Bad (1995) 112: He coughed up a big yellow goober.
1987		G.A. Fine With the Boys 169: Goober, v.i. Drool.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 52/1: goob/goobie a gob of spittle or snot; possibly from American slang for mole or pimple, which is from a ‘goober’, peanut.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 104: In the later 1990s the word goober (spelling and derivation unknown, possibly related to gob, an earlier youthism for spit?) was in use to mean spit or dribble.
2001		(con. 1975–6) E. Little Steel Toes 44: He [...] coughs up phlegm and spits it on the floor, says, ‘Seems like you boys missed a goober’.

3. (US campus) someone not attuned to the peer group norms, a socially unacceptable person.

1989		P. Munro Sl. U. 95: goob/goober person who exhibits strange or silly behavior.
1996		Eble Sl. and Sociability 41: Goob, a clipping of goober, begins with a velar consonant and ends with a labial with a back, lip-rounded vowel in between.

4. (US campus) nasal mucus.

1997–2002

Hope College ‘Dict. of New Terms’ 🌐 goober n. A collection of snot in the nostril.