Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a general term of abuse, i.e. son of a bitch.

1919		H.V. O’Brien diary 24 Jan. in Wine, Women and War (1926) 312: Lt. Col. B—, S.O.B., first grade.
1919		A.C. Inman 16 Dec. diary in Aaron (1985) 164: At school in Decatur, the fighting insult was not ‘S. of B.’ but ‘damn Yankee’.
1920		C. Sandburg letter c.30 Mar. in Mitgang (1968) 183: You are right about the S.O.B.
1925		S. Lewis Arrowsmith 281: What you ought to be doing is jollying along these sobs that are always panning the administration.
1939		B. Appel Power-House 20: Kerrigan, the s.o.b. prince of s.o.b.’s!
1943		H.A. Smith Life in a Putty Knife Factory (1948) 15: Some people [...] even started calling me a revolving s.o.b. A revolving s.o.b., according to the late Iron Pants Johnson, is a man who’s an s.o.b. any way you look at him.
1945		E. Hemingway letter 17 Apr. in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 588: If there aren’t I’ll be a sad s.o.a.b.
1955		B. Schulberg On the Waterfront (1964) 50: Which stevedore official was the biggest S.O.B.
1959		W.C. Heinz Professional 188: Some sob took it [...] Can you imagine that?
1969		P. Theroux Murder in Mount Holly (1999) 40: ‘He was a regular S.O.B.,’ said Miss Ball. ‘And I hope you know what that means ...’.
1976		in Woodward & Bernstein The Final Days 264: The SOB muscles his way in on everything.
1987		‘Joe Bob Briggs’ Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 44: The only things I could make out were [...] ‘two-timing s.o.b.’ (referring to her twisted imagination’s guess about what Cherry Dilday and I were planning to do that night).
1997		D. Farson Never a Normal Man 377: ‘S.O.B.’ said my doctor. [...] ‘Son of a bitch?’ I murmured reproachfully. ‘No. Short of breath.’.
2006		G. Iles Turning Angel 235: I’m not waiting around for that SOB to make a federal case out of this.
2010		Codella and Bennett Alphaville (2011) 48: He’s a nasty SOB [...] Worse than his brother.
2023		F. Bill Back to the Dirt 29: ‘[W]hy even bother dealing with the SOB’s bullshit’.

2. silly old bugger/bastard.

1951

A. Garve Murder in Moscow (1994) 32: You poor s.o.b.!

3. shit or bust.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 1004/1: since ca. 1925.

4. an unspecified object or person, without pej. overtones.

1943		E. Pyle Here Is Your War (1945) 271: I just dumped that s.o.b. in a crick and took off from there.
1968		K. Brasselle Cannibals 86: There wasn’t one S.O.B. in MGM that he hadn’t personally made.
1977		B. Jackson Killing Time 173: That is a smaller prison up in Jefferson county about 40 miles from Cummins. And a tough S.O.B. I found out in just a matter of hours.
1987		‘Joe Bob Briggs’ Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 11: They burned the s.o.b. up cause the fire inspector said it was ‘unsafe’.