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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Lubber

Lubber \Lub"ber\, n. [Cf. dial. Sw. lubber. See Looby, Lob.] A heavy, clumsy, or awkward fellow; a sturdy drone; a clown.

Lingering lubbers lose many a penny.
--Tusser.

Land lubber, a name given in contempt by sailors to a person who lives on land.

Lubber grasshopper (Zo["o]l.), a large, stout, clumsy grasshopper; esp., Brachystola magna, from the Rocky Mountain plains, and Romalea microptera, which is injurious to orange trees in Florida.

Lubber's hole (Naut.), a hole in the floor of the ``top,'' next the mast, through which sailors may go aloft without going over the rim by the futtock shrouds. It is considered by seamen as only fit to be used by lubbers.
--Totten.

Lubber's line, Lubber's point, or Lubber's mark, a line or point in the compass case indicating the head of the ship, and consequently the course which the ship is steering.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
lubber

mid-14c., "big, clumsy, stupid fellow who lives in idleness," from lobre, earlier lobi "lazy lout," probably of Scandinavian origin (compare Swedish dialectal lubber "a plump, lazy fellow"). But OED suggests a possible connection with Old French lobeor "swindler, parasite," with sense altered by association with lob (n.) in the "bumpkin" sense. A sailors' word since 16c. (as in landlubber), but earliest attested use is of lazy monks (abbey-lubber). Compare also lubberwort, the name of the mythical herb that produces laziness (1540s); and Lubberland "imaginary land of plenty without work" (1590s). Sometimes also Lubbard (1580s).

lubber

1520s, from lubber (n.). Related: Lubbered; lubbering.

Wiktionary
lubber

n. 1 a clumsy or lazy person 2 (context nautical English) an inexperienced or novice sailor; a landlubber

WordNet
lubber
  1. n. an awkward stupid person [syn: lout, clod, stumblebum, goon, oaf, lummox, lump, gawk]

  2. an inexperienced sailor; a sailor on the first voyage [syn: landlubber, landsman]

Wikipedia

Usage examples of "lubber".

Gil knew he was supposed to do it properly, pulling himself up the futtock shrouds and angling his body out, up onto the top, but played it safe instead, snaking up through the lubber hole.

Monteau, Evan Dougal, Bernhard Rueger, Marie Broi, Sister Monique, Sister Aimee, Sister Noelle, Pierre Galante, Henri Taine, Maarten Lubbers, Brother Donatus, Sister Juliette, Susanne Dougal, Linda Dougal.

Jonathan, not used to such seawise talk, mistook his meaning, supposing him to have said blubber instead of lubber and feared, just for the moment, that the Professor was talking like a lunatic.

Magnet ahead as a lookout, while two lubbers, like you and me, lie-to to see what sort of a landfall she will make!

And this he did almost every day under his own immediate supervision, bringing in different teams, sometimes of officers alone, led by himself - how he loved pointing the gun - sometimes of midshipmen, but more often of the two extremes of the lower deck, the first and second captains on the one hand, and the boobies, the downright creeping lubbers on the other, in the hope that the best might grow better and the worst learn the exercise at least well enough to be of some use to the ship.

At length I let go and watched the compass swing back on to the lubber lines of our original course.

He had but a short night of it again, since just before dawn an unknown very passionate voice not six inches from the cuddy scuttle cried 'Don't you know how to seize a cuckold's neck, you God-damned lubber?

For an hour, now, he had dawdled under mainsail, genoa, and a couple of flying jibs, hoping the Sky People were lubbers enough not to find that suspiciously little canvas for such good weather.

He strode to the hatch, just for'ard of the mainmast, down the ladder (a land lubber would have called it a set of stairs, but aboard a ship, stairs are always called ladders), and through the upper gundeck.

I've seen some salt water in my days, yer land lubber, but shiver my timbers if I hadn't rather coast among seagulls than landsharks.

Those who do not eat 12 pies are supposed to be plagued by the Lubber Fiend -- a goblin somewhat vaguely identified by folk-lore specialists.

He is the lub, the lubber fiend, and sometimes he plays at being the nut-brown house-sprite for whom a bowl of milk is left outside the door, although, if you want to be rid of him, you must leave him a pair of trousers.

He had mastered only one small element of the seaman's craft, that of keeping the appropriate compass mark upon the lubber line, and thai only within the last half hour.

He sat there in his cricket shirt and braces with Panama hat upon his head under the brilliant sun of the Hawaiian Islands, the bread and the corned beef un tasted on the deck beside him, concentrating on doing the one thing that he had been taught, keeping the tiddy little triangle upon the lubber line.

The night chorus begins to sing, frogs and lubbers and crickets, and occasionally you'll catch a glimpse of the rarest creatures of the Atchafalaya -- a bear or a bobcat or the great white flag of a snowy egret hurling itself into the velvet dark with a thunder of mighty wings.