Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A protuberance or knob.
- n. A small lump.
- n. The essence; the core: the nub of a story.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A knob; a protuberance.
- n. In cotton- and wool-carding, a snarl; an entanglement; a knot; a knub.
- n. Point; pith; gist.
- To push.
- To beckon.
- To hang (Davies); nab.
Wiktionary
- n. Internet, slang A noob; a newcomer or incompetent.
- n. obsolete The innermost section of a chrysalis in a silk cocoon.
- n. A small lump or knob.
- n. The essence or core of an issue, argument etc.
- n. slang The clitoris.
- v. baseball To hit the ball weakly.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. Prov. Eng. To push; to nudge; also, to beckon.
- n. colloq. A jag, or snag; a knob; a protuberance; also, the point or gist, as of a story.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience
- n. a small lump or protuberance
- n. a small piece
Etymologies
- Either directly from Middle Low German, or from knub, from a Middle Low German word (compare Low German Knubbel, Knobbel ("knot; lump")). Compare knob. (Wiktionary)
- Variant of knub, probably from Low German knubbe, from Middle Low German, variant of knobbe. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The diagram also shows that a rod should be pushed ideally 1. 25W, although because each nub is of length W, the push amount could theoretically range from fractionally more than 0. 25W to fractionally less than 2. 25W.”
“The nub is that whatever the presenter may think, people were offended - both in the talk and those who saw the slides later.”
“In Palladium this is actually something called a "nub" -- in their marketing materials a "Trusted Operating Root" or "TOR" -- but we can pretend it's the OS kernel instead.”
“That 'nub' is so ingeniously, so casually, flung in, and immediately left there in the tail of the letter, undwelt upon, that an indifferent reader would never suspect that it was the heart and core of the epistle, if he even took note of it at all, This is the 'nub' --”
“I hoard them, using them till the nub is so short I can’t grip it anymore.”
“We have nepeta that self sows about the garden and it is usually chewed to the nub, which is fine by me.”
“Kitteh needz moer hairgell to beet Christian… And wif doz teefs I wouldna want to be himz stylist… draw bak a nub from da poyntee endz!”
Tunite - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger?
“The nub is the question of how to cover everybody; and then how to give small businesses the same market power in buying insurance that big business and government have.”
“The sores on his nub were the type of thing that would have most people out of commission for weeks, and he'd run a marathon a day on it, blood sometimes streaming down his prosthesis.”
“And finally, the nub is the often-discarded piece that flaps off of the end," Roth says.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘nub’.
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emordnilap
reviled, loot, no, ta, rat, part, pit, stop, spat, ten, mad, mart and 108 more...
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3-letter Scrabble Words
aah, aal, aas, aba, abo, abs, aby, ace, act, add, ado, ads and 995 more...
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gists
words about central ideas and actions
gist, nub, sense, meat, core, essence, heart, crux, pith, marrow, kernel, quintessence and 35 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1908 more...
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Words that are fun to say
gerbil, spleen, rickshaw, ripley, crevis, you, po, hermes, girl, yo, reality, grockle and 8 more...
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What's That Pokémon Name?
Words used to create the names of Pokémon, which are usually portmanteaux.
bulb, dinosaur, ivy, venus, char, salamander, squirt, turtle, blast, tortoise, water, caterpillar and 525 more...
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My GRE Vocab
moniker, sobriquet, prerogative, aberration, aberrant, nuance, notorious, infamous, content, refer, allude, renown and 109 more...
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Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
unfathomably, glice, cuh, fab, ciggaty, doll, thuggin, oxymoronic, pineapple, succubutt, griming, cheeky and 2369 more... -
Just 'cause I like 'em, N
nurdled, naumachia, nystagmus, nephology, nigh, noctilucent, noctambulant, nocebo, neap, napiform, nacelle, node and 95 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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Words I have to learn
exasperate, felony, weld, fraud, worksheet, ransom, rehearse, preliminary, offshore, parole, infamous, sieve and 436 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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Damieng's Words
lupine, sapor, boz imp, imp, ovine, saracen, haberdashery, tiebar, shill, cutler, cutaway, lucite and 218 more...
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DYSLEXIC'S DREAD
Words That Make Sense in Reverse Too! Bad news for a dyslexic, 'cause s/he's got no clue if s/he read the word correctly or not, as opposed to a palindrome (i.e., no mistake possible, cf. "Dyslexic...
tool, lever, nap, pool, leer, leek, desserts, strop, doom, ukiah, yaws, ward and 213 more...
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Winter's Bone vocabulary
Study list of difficult words from Daniel Woodrell's novel Winter's Bone. In reverse order: start at the bottom to see words from the beginning of the novel!
plaid, lazy susan, lope, furtive, dour, scamper, hard-boiled, implacable, dainty, stomp, resignation, crank and 138 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for nub.
oroboros Bun in reverse. Nov 3, 2007