Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of several edible marine decapod crustaceans of the family Nephropidae, especially of the genus Homarus, having stalked eyes, long antennae, a pair of large pincers, and a cylindrical body.
  • noun Any of several similar crustaceans, such as a spiny lobster.
  • noun The flesh of a lobster used as food.
  • intransitive verb To catch or try to catch lobsters.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A dull fellow, who is easily imposed upon; an irritating blockhead; a foolish bore; a chump: a vague term for contempt.
  • noun In cricket, a bowler of lobs or underhand balls. See lob, 8.
  • noun A marine, stalk-eyed, long-tailed, ten-footed crustacean of the subclass Podophthalma or Thoracostraca, order Decapoda, suborder Macrura, family Homaridæ, and genus Homarus, such as H. vulgaris of Europe or H. americanus of the Atlantic coast of North America.
  • noun One of several other crustaceans resembling the above.
  • noun The common sole, Solea vulgaris.
  • noun A stoat.
  • noun A British soldier: probably so called originally in allusion to his cuirass, but the name is now generally supposed to refer to his red coat.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) Any large macrurous crustacean used as food, esp. those of the genus Homarus; as the American lobster (Homarus Americanus), and the European lobster (Homarus vulgaris). The Norwegian lobster (Nephrops Norvegicus) is similar in form. All these have a pair of large unequal claws. The spiny lobsters of more southern waters, belonging to Palinurus, Panulirus, and allied genera, have no large claws. The fresh-water crayfishes are sometimes called lobsters.
  • noun Slang As a term of opprobrium or contempt: A gullible, awkward, bungling, or undesirable person.
  • noun (Zoöl.) the caterpillar of a European bombycid moth (Stauropus fagi); -- so called from its form.
  • noun (Zoöl.) a copepod crustacean (Nicothoë astaci) parasitic on the gills of the European lobster.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective red-colored, especially from a sunburn.
  • noun A crustacean of the Nephropidae family, normally red in colour, with claws, which is used as an expensive seafood.
  • noun historical A soldier or officer of the imperial British Army (due to their red or scarlet uniform).
  • noun slang An Australian twenty dollar note, due to its reddish-orange colour.
  • verb To fish for lobsters.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun flesh of a lobster
  • noun any of several edible marine crustaceans of the families Homaridae and Nephropsidae and Palinuridae

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English lopster, lobstere, from Old English loppestre, alteration (perhaps influenced by loppe, lobbe, spider) of Latin locusta, locust (grasshopper), lobster.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English lopster ("lobster"), from Old English loppestre ("lobster, spider-like creature"), believed to be a corruption of Latin locusta ("lobster, locust") + the Old English feminine agent suffix -estre; or from Old English lobbe, loppe ("spider") + the Old English feminine agent suffix -estre, equivalent to lop +‎ -ster. More at lop.

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Examples

Comments

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  • One who is apt to lob.

    December 11, 2008

  • "The world is my lobster."

    - Irish soccer international Keith O'Neill trying to look on the bright side (I think) after injury cut short his career.

    February 16, 2009

  • "What made it worse, being English, they did not want to eat unfamiliar food.... The waters were so rich in lobsters that they were literally crawling out of the sea and piling up inhospitably on the beaches. But the Pilgrims, and most people until this century, did not want to eat these huge, clacking, speckled sea monsters. Apparently in desperation, they were eventually reduced to eating lobster. In 1622, Bradford reported with shame that conditions were so bad for the settlers of New England that the only 'dish they could presente sic their friends with was a lobster.'"

    —Mark Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (New York: Penguin, 1997), 69

    p.s. Thanks, Weirdnet.

    July 15, 2009