Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A nub. The name nubble is applied to a rocky promontory on the coast of Maine, at York.
  • To beat or bruise with the fist.

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

  • transitive verb obsolete To beat or bruise with the fist.

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

  • noun A small knob or lump.
  • verb obsolete To beat or bruise with the fist.

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

  • noun a small lump or protuberance

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Compare Low German nubben to knock, cuff.

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Examples

  • For example, I bought the DVD of "Chariots of Fire" as my VHS was worn to a nubble.

    You Know What Ticks Me Off? 2005

  • That tallest blue pine, that nubble of grasses in the upland meadow, that outcrop of granite.

    Son of a Witch Maguire, Gregory 2005

  • She breathed on a penny, placed it on the nubble, before wrapping the napkin round.

    At Swim, Two Boys Jamie O’Neill 2002

  • She breathed on a penny, placed it on the nubble, before wrapping the napkin round.

    At Swim, Two Boys Jamie O’Neill 2002

  • A round nubble about 14 mile in diameter, of sharp, rocky bottom having about 40 fathoms over it.

    Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine Walter H. Rich

  • And noo I am thinking ye'll een let the puir mon in the dock just gae free; and pit my laird, his greece, the nubble duk ', intil the prisoner's place.

    The Lost Lady of Lone Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth 1859

  • “See that,” she said, and of course he did, for he was gawping and blinking at it, the nubble out of the babba’s belly.

    At Swim, Two Boys Jamie O’Neill 2002

  • “See that,” she said, and of course he did, for he was gawping and blinking at it, the nubble out of the babba’s belly.

    At Swim, Two Boys Jamie O’Neill 2002

  • a while, and ketch me a mess o 'brook-trout, but as for tinkerin' over the roads -- why, that artis 'that was down here three months las' summer, paintin 'a couple o' Leezur's sheep eatin 'rock-weed off'n a nubble, said 't our roads was picturusque.

    Vesty of the Basins Sarah P. McLean Greene 1895

  • "That little nubble almost west, sticking up so black against the sunset's Seal Island.

    Jim Spurling, Fisherman or Making Good Albert Walter Tolman

Comments

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  • The steel door to the engine room blew its bolts and out of the issuing smoke coalesced Black Master Chief Harold, radiant black with sweat like fresh-chiseled coal, his chin streaked and gooed from fuel-tasting, his asbestos jacket smoldering. Behind him were his fire lackey and his boiler monkey, hints of fume from their nostrils, them not much larger than myself, their bent helmets hardly protecting their hair in the places where it was singed to broiled nubbles. They looked shot from cannons.

    - Mark Richard, Fishboy, pp. 67-68

    June 11, 2008