gob

Etymology 1

From Middle French gobe, goube (“lump, mouthful”), from Gaulish.

noun

1. (countable) A lump of soft or sticky material.
   1952, The Glass Industry, Volume 33, Ashlee Publishing Company, page 309, These inventors have discovered that gobs may be fed at widely spaced times without allowing the glass to flow during the interval but instead flushes out the chilled glass which accumulates during the dwell.
2. (uncountable, slang) Saliva or phlegm.
   He spat a big ball of gob on to the pavement.
3. (US, regional) A whoopee pie.

verb

1. To gather into a lump.
   1997 March, William G. Tapply, How to Catch a Trout on a Sandwich, Field & Stream, page 60, I liked to gob up two or three worms on a snelled hook, pinch three or four split shot onto the leader, and plunk it into the dark water.
2. (slang, transitive, intransitive) To spit, especially to spit phlegm.

Etymology 2

Probably from Irish gob, Scottish Gaelic gob (“beak, mouth”).

noun

1. (countable, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, slang) The mouth.
   He′s always stuffing his gob with fast food.
   Oi, you, shut your gob!
   She's got such a gob on her – she's always gossiping about someone or other.
   Now washing you will be like washing a goth / All that black lipstick around their gobs 2005, “Tango”, in Public Warning, performed by Lady Sovereign

Etymology 3

Back-formation from gobbing, or a specified use of Etymology 1, above.

noun

1. (uncountable, mining) Waste material in old mine workings, goaf.
   This consisted in wheeling gob back to the most distant part of the stope and filling up the sets right up to the roof. 1930, Engineering and Mining Journal, volume 130, page 330

verb

1. (mining, intransitive) To pack away waste material in order to support the walls of the mine.

Etymology 4

Shortened from gobby or gobshite.

noun

1. (US, military, slang) A sailor.
   Well I have taken the oath of allegiance for 4 years service anywhere in the world and am now a real 'gob' in the U. S. Navy. 1918 October 22, Letter of Adlai Stevenson, quoted in John Bartlow Martin, Adlai Stevenson of Illinois: The Life of Adlai E. Stevenson (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976), page 53
   If it weren't for the Fleet I should scarcely be able to endure it. Gobs are always amusing, as you know. 1928, Hart Crane, letter, 27 April
   Full-cut, dashing "gob" slacks with back pocket. 1937, Stella Blum, Everyday Fashion of the Thirties as pictured in Sears Catalogs, published 1986, page 94
   1944 November, Fitting the Gob to the Job, Popular Mechanics, page 18, For the first time in history, new warship crews are virtually “prefabricated” by modern methods of fitting the gob to the job.
   1948 June, Fred B. Barton, Mending Broken Gobs, The Rotarian, page 22, Taking a safe average of 2,000 rehabilitated young gobs a year, that′s a total of 100,000 years of salvaged manhood, a target worth shooting at.