daub

Etymology

From Middle English daub (noun), from Middle English dauben (“to plaster or whitewash; cover with clay; bespatter”, verb), from Old Northern French dauber (“to whitewash; plaster”), of uncertain origin. Probably from Latin dealbāre (“to whiten thoroughly”).

noun

1. Excrement or clay used as a bonding material in construction.
2. A soft coating of mud, plaster, etc.
3. A crude or amateurish painting.
   Ah, but what if he penned what in the art schools they call an 'artist's statement' wherein he explained the relation of his gibberish or his daubs to the mainstream of art or writing? 2008, Joseph Agassi, Ian Charles Jarvie, A Critical Rationalist Aesthetics, page 16

verb

1. (intransitive, transitive) To apply (something) to a surface in hasty or crude strokes.
   The artist just seemed to daub on paint at random and suddenly there was a painting.
   […] as he watched, [the motorcar] came up the snow-covered road, green and brown painted, in broken patches of daubed color, the windows blued over so that you could not see in […] 1940, Ernest Hemingway, chapter 15, in For Whom the Bell Tolls, London: Jonathan Cape, page 185
   Blood was running to her shoe, and her stocking was torn in a jagged hole. […] she wet toilet paper and daubed until the red was gone from her stocking, but the red kept coming. 1952, Patricia Highsmith, chapter 3, in The Price of Salt, Norton, published 2004, page 39
   They were expecting to see me, she said, daubing paint on the canvas and stepping back to gauge the effect. 1969, Chaim Potok, The Promise, New York: Fawcett Crest, Book 3, Chapter 16, p. 379
   Cylindrical lanterns daubed in red writing hung at intervals across wooden beams […] 2007, Tan Twan Eng, The Gift of Rain, New York: Weinstein Books, Book 1, Chapter 21, p. 226
   Unfortunately, one side of the new five-car train is daubed in graffiti, having been vandalised in Wembley Yard, en route from Switzerland. March 8 2023, “Network News: First Tyne & Wear Metro '555' already 'tagged'”, in RAIL, number 978, page 9
2. (transitive) To paint (a picture, etc.) in a coarse or unskilful manner.
   […] a lame, imperfect Piece, rudely daub’d over with too little Reflection and too much haste. 1695, Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy, translated by John Dryden, Observations on the Art of Painting, London: W. Rogers, page 201
   1826, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, An Essay on Mind, Book I, in The Earlier Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1826-1833, London: Bartholomew Robson, 1878, pp. 25-26, If some gay picture, vilely daubed, were seen With grass of azure, and a sky of green, Th’impatient laughter we’d suppress in vain, And deem the painter jesting, or insane.
   […] this stretch of the shore is still filthy with trash; high-school gangs still daub huge scandalous words on its beach-wall, and seashells are still less easy to find here than discarded rubbers. 1964, Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man, Vintage, published 2010
3. (transitive, obsolete) To cover with a specious or deceitful exterior; to disguise; to conceal.
   No flattering praises daub my stone, My frailties and my faults to hide; 1820, John Clare, “The Universal Epitaph”, in Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery, London: Taylor & Hessey, page 91
4. (transitive, obsolete) To flatter excessively or grossly.
   I can safely say, however, that without any daubing at all, I am, very sincerely, Your very affectionate, humble servant, 1766, Tobias Smollett, Travels through France and Italy, London: R. Baldwin, Volume 2, Letter 28, p. 73
5. (transitive, obsolete) To put on without taste; to deck gaudily.
   1697, John Dryden, “On the Three Dukes killing the Beadle on Sunday Morning, Febr. the 26th, 1670/1” in John Denham et al., Poems on affairs of state from the time of Oliver Cromwell, to the abdication of K. James the Second, London, p. 148, Yet shall Whitehall the Innocent, the Good, See these men dance all daub’d with Lace and Blood.
   […] whenever they came in order to pay those islanders a visit, [they] were generally very well dressed, and very poor, daubed with lace, but all the gilding on the outside. 1762, Oliver Goldsmith, The Citizen of the World, London, Volume 1, Letter 50, p. 224