Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a mouthful.

2012

R. Milward Kimberly’s Capital Punishment (2023) 254: I spit a gobful of Smirnoff back into my glass.

(Aus.) a scolding, a telling-off.

1992		M. Coleman Fatty 84: ‘I said, ‘Hi,’ and she just reeled off and gave me an absolute gobfull’.
1999		R.G. Barrett Wind & Monkey (2013) [ebook] Les had given Pope and Corris a reasonable gobful on the night.

the mouth.

1773		J. Forster Goldsmith (5th edn) Bk IV Ch. xiv 414: Shuter protesting in his vehement odd way that ‘the boy could patter,’ and ‘use the gob-box as quick and smart as any of them’ [F&H].
1819		W. Scott Bride of Lammermoor 19: ‘Your characters,’ he said, ‘my dear Pattieson, make too much use of the gob box; they patter too much.’.
1825		N.Y. Gazette and General Advertiser 2 Dec. 2/1–2: ‘Turn him out,’ says one. ‘Let him alone,’ says another. ‘Stop up his gob box.’ ‘It takes a man to do that.’ ‘Does it, by G—? then I’m that man.’.

(Aus.) false teeth.

1985

B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 107: Some of the dentists who have really cleaned up fitting the teatowel-heads with new sets of top-of-the-range, state-of-the-art gob crockery turn out to be [...] Aussies.

(Irish) a foolish or pretentious individual.

2021

L. McInerney Rules of Revelation 35: [T]he journalist had deduced she’d be a godawful gobdaw.

a mouth organ; note cit. 2004 may not be completely accurate in its geographical claims.

1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 479/2: since ca. 1950.
2002		Guardian 3 May 🌐 As the marijuana fog enveloping the room becomes more dense, the washboard comes out, glasses are tapped, the Scouse accents become more impenetrable. Somebody asks for a ‘gob iron’. It turns out they want a harmonica.
2004		review at Amazon.com 🌐 The Dutch call it the ‘moothy’, the Scotch call it a ‘gob iron’ and Americans call it a ‘harp,’ shortened from ‘French Harp,’ the label on early imports of the instrument.

1. fellatio.

1997

Solar Project ‘Zeitgest’ 🎵 on ...in Time [album] You sit on my face, I dine at your Y / Blow job, gob job, sixty-eight / You feed your face and eat my meat / My fist into your Dead End Street.

2. (US gay) fellatio performed on a sailor [adds pun on gob n.² (4a)].

1988

H. Max Gay (S)language.

a fool.

2004

bitchology 🌐 This goblock that is ugly was standing there with his hand on the handle, doing nothing, not opening the door, just looking far away at another ugly goblock I bet.

to talk (loudly).

2002		D. Shaw ‘Dead Beard’ at www.asstr.org 🌐 It’s a good thing there’s nobody around on the beach to hear her gobbing off because she going to be doing a double matinee performance today.
2003		Brummagem Dict. 🌐 gob off ph v. to mouth off. ‘’E was gobbin’ off left right and centre’.

(Aus.) a mouth-organ.

1973

(con. 1930s) F. Huelin ‘Keep Moving’ 2: He pulled a mouth-organ from his pocket [...] ‘Play a gob-organ?’ he enquired.

to talk.

1820

Jack Randall’s Diary 8: He can gob-out Flash, And swig blue ruin by the hour (*Talk Flash and drink gin).

spit.

2024

J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 604: The dripping oyster of mucus struck a pouting transvestite who shrieked: ‘I accept nothing but grand cru jism. This is gob plonk, matey.’.

see separate entry.

see separate entry.

1. (US) usu. pl., (silver) forks or spoons.

1789		in G. Parker Life’s Painter.
a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795).
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 31: Gob sticks, silver forks or spoons.
1903		S. Clapin New Dict. Americanisms.

2. (orig. US, also gobblestick) a clarinet or fife.

1926		E.P. Norwood Other Side of the Circus 236: We call a clarinet a gob stick.
1935		Indiana Eve. Gazette 20 Mar. 9/2: A clarinet [may be called] a ‘gobblestick.’.
1938		Pic (N.Y.) Mar. 7: licking the licorice stick or gob stick. — playing the clarinet. Also known as an agony pipe or wop stick.
1944		P. Kendall Dict. Service Sl. n.p.: gobstick . . . clarinet, also a licorice stick.

see gab string under gab n.¹

see gobsmacked adj.

to lose one’s temper.

1932

(con. 1910s) J.T. Farrell Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 7: When they blew their gobs off, he would tell them [...] he was his own boss. [Ibid.] 61: He wondered if he was blowing his gab off too much.

(Aus.) to chatter, to gossip.

1914

Sport (Adelaide) 14 Mar. 4/3: Footman D, the eccentric Flunkey, still continues to flop his gob all over the ship. Look out Fred or someone will be putting a plaster across it.

to be quiet; often as imper. (cf. stow one’s gab under gab n.² ).

1929		‘Henry Green’ Living (1978) 241: I could hold my gob for a day and a year if I so wanted.
1958		J. Arden Live Like Pigs Act I: Ah, hold your old gob, will you, I’m leading as much of the weight as you.
1969		Cressey & Ward Delinquency, Crime, and Social Process 809: If one ‘knows what’s happening,’ ‘holds one’s mug’ (does not snitch), and does not ‘rank’ people who get loaded, he is accepted.

to be quiet; esp. in imper. shut your gob!

1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 16 July n.p.: Now Tom, your gab shut for once.
1859		Wells Jrnl (UK) 18 July 3/6: Old English words and phrases [...] Hold your gab, shut up your gob.
1826		Cumberland Pacquet 12 Dec. 4/5: Stop your gob and lay your braggin’.
1861		Melbourne Punch ‘City Police Court’ 3 Oct. 234/1: The Mayor. – Oh, I can voker Romany as well as you; so shut your gob, and don’t be kicksy. What’s become of your mollisher?
1900		Truth (Sydney) 15 July 8/2: ‘Cabby,’ sez he, ‘here's a sov.; / That’s for drivin’. Here's another / Just to shet yer bloomin’ gob’.
1903		Examiner (Launceston, Tas.) 10 Aug. 3/7: It was the ordinary occurrence for a clergyman preaching at St Paul’s Cross to request any noisy member of his congregation to ‘shut up his gob’.
c.1914		C. Mac Garvey Green Line and the Little Yellow Road in Mac Thomáis (1982) 159: Now Jamesy shut your gob, t’was blooming rotten job / To take that barefaced Johnnie for a Cod.
1915		Bulletin (Sydney) 28 Oct. 47/2: ‘Shut yer gob!’ retaliated Jones.
1932		G. Storm ‘Bobby Thatcher’ [comic strip] Shut your gab and get over there!
1934		J. Franklyn This Gutter Life 80: Shut your gob, you daft bastard.
1937		R. Westerby Wide Boys Never Work (1938) 12: ‘Shut your gob,’ he said. ‘That’s what. You’re looking for trouble again, boy.’.
1943		‘Myles na gCopaleen’ Faustus Kelly in ‘Flann O’Brien’ Stories & Plays (1973) 125: You shut your Cork gob and keep it shut!
1943		R. Llewellyn None But the Lonely Heart 132: Shut your gab [...] I’m talking, see?
1946		(con. 1912) B. Marshall George Brown’s Schooldays 86: Shut your gob, you putrid little ruin.
1959		A. Sillitoe ‘On Saturday Afternoon’ Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1960) 105: ‘Shut yer gob,’ he said.
1962		K. Waterhouse There is a Happy Land (1964) 43: You-ou wasn’t with us [...] so shut your gob.
1965		J.P. Carstairs Concrete Kimono 58: Shut your gob. We’re here.
1977		S. Berkoff East in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 67: Shut your gob.
1979		H. Leonard A Life (1981) Act II: Shut that gob of yours. Shut it.
1983		A. Payne ‘Get Daley!’ Minder [TV script] 43: Just shut your gob a minute.
1985		J. Clanchy Lie of Land 78: You shut your gab or I’ll blow your balls off.
1992		K. Lette Llama Parlour 143: This woman should just make like a turtle — shut her gob and pull her head in.
1994		J. O’Connor Secret World of the Irish Male (1995) 204: Ah, shut your feckin’ gob, you great eejit.
2001		N. Griffiths Sheepshagger 54: Shut yewer gobs or I’ll crack yewer heads together.
2002		A. Duff Jake’s Long Shadow 183: Shut your effin’ gob!

to abuse, to tell off.

1835

Sydney Herald 18 June 4/2: [M]y eyes how you did tip him the gobbox about imperdence, and when he wouldn't give you the go by, about morals and jistice, and equality, and sich like big words.