dub

Etymology 1

From a Late Old English (11th century) word dubbian (“to knight by striking with a sword”) perhaps borrowed from Old French adober (“equip with arms; adorn”) (also 11th century, Modern French adouber, from Proto-Germanic *dubjaną (“to fit”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ- (“plug, peg, wedge”). Cognate with Icelandic dubba (dubba til riddara). Compare also drub for an English reflex of the Germanic word.

verb

1. (transitive) (now historical or ceremonial) To confer knighthood; the conclusion of the ceremony was marked by a tap on the shoulder with a sword.
2. (transitive) To name, to entitle, to call.
   Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster. 2013-06-22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70
3. (transitive) To deem.
4. To clothe or invest; to ornament; to adorn.
5. (heading) To strike, rub, or dress smooth; to dab.
   1. To dress with an adze.
      to dub a stick of timber smooth
   2. To strike cloth with teasels to raise a nap.
      For dressing or dubbing cloths, either wet or dry, otherwise than by green cards and pickards 1808, Annual Register
   3. To rub or dress with grease, as leather in the process of currying it.
      1852-1866, Charles Tomlinson, Cyclopaedia of Useful Arts and Manufactures When the skin is thoroughly cleansed, and while yet in its wet and distended state, the process of stuffing, or dubbing (probably a corruption of daubing), is performed. Both sides of the skin, but chiefly the flesh side, are smeared or daubed with a mixture of cod-oil and tallow
   4. To dress a fishing fly.
      if you can dub a Fly of the exact colour of the Natural Fly, Fish at that instant take, it's sufficient 1689, James Chetham, The Anglers Vade Mecum
6. To prepare (a gamecock) for fighting, by trimming the hackles and cutting off the comb and wattles.

Etymology 2

1505-1515

verb

1. To make a noise by brisk drumbeats.
2. To do something badly.
3. (golf) To execute a shot poorly.

noun

1. (rare) A blow, thrust, or poke.
2. (golf) A poorly executed shot.

Etymology 3

1885-90. Imitative; see also flub, flubdub.

noun

1. (slang, now historical) An unskillful, awkward person.
   As I came over the hill, I saw Ernest Plinlimmon and his partner, in whom I recognized a prominent local dub, emerging from the rough on the right. Apparently, the latter had sliced from the tee, and Ernest had been helping him find his ball. 1936, P. G. Wodehouse, There's Always Golf, London: The Strand Magazine
   The miser, a-seeking lost gelt, / The doughboy, awaiting the battle, / May possibly know how I felt / While the long years dragged by as the dealer / As slow as the slowest of dubs, / Stuck out the last helping of tickets / 'Till I lifted—the Bullet of Clubs! 1969, Robert L. Vann, The Competitor, volumes 2-3, page 135

Etymology 4

From a shortening of the word double.

verb

1. To add sound to film or change audio on film.
2. To make a copy from an original or master audio tape.
3. To replace the original soundtrack of a film with a synchronized translation
4. To mix audio tracks to produce a new sound; to remix.

noun

1. (music, countable) A mostly instrumental remix with all or part of the vocals removed.
2. (music, uncountable) A style of reggae music involving mixing of different audio tracks.
   It’s also burnished by intriguing sense of vaguely dub-influenced space. At one point, it breaks down to little more than a stabbing, echoing organ with a vintage reggae flavour. April 23, 2020, Alexis Petridis, “The Rolling Stones: Living in a Ghost Town review – their best new song in years”, in The Guardian
3. (music, uncountable) A trend in music starting in 2009, in which bass distortion is synced off timing to electronic dance music.
   But I think my bass playing is definitely dub-influenced. January 18, 2019, Jamie Dickson, “Khruangbin: “We’re not intending to create war with our music… It’s the absence of that aggression that a lot of rock bands have””, in Music Radar
   Dyl’s polyrhythmic grooves on The Subsurface Project fuse dub techno and drum & bass, mixing modular sounds with hints of warm, jittery jungle. July 20, 2020, Arun Chakal, “The Worked-Up Sound of Drum & Bass in Russia and Eastern Europe”, in Bandcamp Daily
   It reminded me of that classic Full Cycle vibe of jazzy soulful sounds blending with dub bass and fx. Aug 3, 2020, Kane, “The Extended Cut: Zero T - Former Self EP [The North Quarter]”, in Magnetic Magazine
4. (slang, countable) A piece of graffiti in metallic colour with a thick black outline.
   […] we climbed up the scaffolding and did these gold little dubs and you couldn't see them. 2001, Nancy Macdonald, The Graffiti Subculture, page 84
   The year 1998 was alive with graffiti and trains pulling up with dubs on their sides. 2011, Justin Rollins, The Lost Boyz: A Dark Side of Graffiti, page 34
5. (countable) The replacement of a voice part in a movie or cartoon, particularly with a translation; an instance of dubbing.

Etymology 5

From Celtic; compare Irish dobhar (“water”), Welsh dŵr (“water”).

noun

1. (UK, dialect) A pool or puddle.

Etymology 6

From shortening of double dime (“twenty”).

noun

1. (slang) A twenty-dollar sack of marijuana.
2. (slang) A wheel rim measuring 20 inches or more.

Etymology 7

From dup (“to open”), from do + up, from Middle English don up (“to open”).

verb

1. (obsolete, UK, thieves' cant) To open or close.
   Crash the cull—down with him—down with him before he dubs the jigger. Tip him the degan, Fib, fake him through and through; if he pikes we shall all be scragged. 1828, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, chapter LXXXIII, in Pelham: or The Adventures of a Gentleman, page 402

noun

1. (obsolete, UK, thieves' cant) A lock.
2. (obsolete, UK, thieves' cant) A key, especially a master key; a lock pick.
   […]going upon the dobbin, is a woman dressed like a servant maid, no hat nor cloak on, a bunch of young dubs by her side, which are a bunch of small keys[…] 1789, George Parker, Life's Painter of Variegated Characters in Public and Private Life, page 162

Etymology 8

noun

1. Clipping of double-u.
   World Wide Web or WWW Pronouncing this "dub dub dub" (with no rub-a) will definitely establish you as an insider. 1997, Nelson Howell, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Microsoft Visual InterDev, Que Pub
   I once met a gaggle of Aussies who'd paid thousands of dollars out of their own pockets for airfare and registration to attend an annual Apple convention called the Worldwide Developers Conference, or WWDC—or, in this crowd, “Dub Dub 2018, Corey Pein, Live Work Work Work Die: A Journey into the Savage Heart of Silicon Valley, Metropolitan Books, page 119
   1. (video games, Internet slang) A win.
      I haven't had a dub in a few games

Etymology 9

noun

1. (India, historical) A small copper coin once used in India.