lob

Meanings

Verb

• To throw or hit a ball into the air in a high arch.
• To throw.
• To put, place.
• To hit, kick, or throw a ball over another player in a game.
• To let fall heavily or lazily.
• To cob (chip off unwanted pieces of stone).

Noun

• (ball sports) A pass or stroke which arches high into the air.
• A lump.
• A country bumpkin; a yokel.
• A clumsy person.
• The person who comes last in a race.
• A lobworm.
• A fish, the European pollock.

Origin

• First attested late 16th c. in the sense "allow or cause to dangle, hang," from lob#Etymology_2.
• From an Old English word for lumpish or unwieldy things, from Proto-Germanic *lubbǭ ("that which hangs or dangles"), from Proto-Indo-European *lewbʰ-, *lep-. Compare Danish lobbes ("bumpkin, clown"), Old English loppe ("spider") (in the sense of something that hangs or dangles). Possibly influenced or borrowed through Welsh llob ("lump").
• Danish lubbe, from Old Norse lubba, ultimately from lob#Etymology_2 in the sense of "clumsy, heavily or lumpily hanging."