blubber

• blobber (dated)

From Middle English bluber (“bubbling water; foaming waves”), of likely onomatopoeic origin. The verb is derived from the noun. See blob, bleb.

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• Rhymes: -ʌbə(ɹ)

• Audio (UK):

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blubber (countable and uncountable, plural blubbers)

1. A fatty layer of adipose tissue found immediately beneath the epidermis.
   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter XXXII, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 155:

     Though their blubber is very thin, some of these whales will yield you upwards of thirty gallons of oil.

   • 2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:

     It[Oil] was used to make kerosene, the main fuel for artificial lighting after overfishing led to a shortage of whale blubber.

2. Fatty tissue.

   Synonym: adipose tissue

3. The thick coat of fat worn by many Arctic animals, such as sea lions, and Antarctic animals, such as penguins; used to insulate warmth in the animal's body.
   • 1877, Charles W. Hall, chapter XVIII, in Adrift in the Ice-Fields‎^[1], Boston: Lee and Shepard:

     Still something had occurred to prevent the hunters from securing their rich booty, for huge piles of skins, with their adhering blubber, were scattered over the ice, and near one was planted firmly in the floe a boat-hook, with a small flag at the top.

4. (obsolete) A bubble.

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• → German: Blubber

blubber (third-person singular simple present blubbers, present participle blubbering, simple past and past participle blubbered)

1. To make noises or broken words while crying.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:weep

   • 1918, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, The Outside of the House

     They knew that the wall stood and the house was saved, and old Sam was blubbering over old Captain Joe Dickson lying spent almost to death on the veranda

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 2, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

     But no more of this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling, and there is plenty of that yet to come.

2. (archaic, transitive) To swell or disfigure (the face) with weeping; to wet with tears.
   • 1718, Matthew Prior, A Better Answer

     Dear Cloe, how blubbered is that pretty face!

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC:

     [S]he hastily retired, taking with her her little girl, whose eyes were all over blubbered at the melancholy news she heard of Jones, who used to call her his little wife, and not only gave her many playthings, but spent whole hours in playing with her himself.

• beblubber
• blubbery

•   blubber on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “blubber”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

• bubbler

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blubber

1. inflection of blubbern:
   1. first-person singular present
   2. singular imperative