dub

• (Received Pronunciation, General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /dʌb/
• (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /dɐb/

  • Audio (Queensland):

    (file)

• (Northern England, Ireland) IPA^(key): /dʊb/
• Rhymes: -ʌb

From Middle English dubben, from Old English dubbian (“to knight by striking with a sword, dub”) from Old French adober (“to equip with arms; adorn”) (also 11th century, Modern French adouber), both from Proto-West Germanic *dubbōn, from Proto-Germanic *dub- (“to hit, strike”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ- (“plug, peg, wedge”).

Cognate with Icelandic dubba (in dubba til riddara). Compare also drub for an English reflex of the Germanic word.

dub (third-person singular simple present dubs, present participle dubbing, simple past and past participle dubbed)

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, the accolade.

   Synonym: knight

   • c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii], page 154, column 2:

     You promiſt Knighthood to our forward ſonne, / Vnſheath your ſword, and dub him preſently.

   • 1885, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, chapter II, in John Ormsby, transl., The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha […] In Four Vols, volume I, London: Smith, Elder & Co. […], →OCLC, part I, page 114:

     It occurred to him that he had not been dubbed a knight, and that according to the law of chivalry he neither could nor ought to bear arms against any knight; […] .

2. (transitive, now informal) To name, to entitle, to call. [from the later 16th c.]

   Synonyms: designate, name; see also Thesaurus:denominate

   • 1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, →OCLC:

     They tripped along the murky aisles with the rest of the company, visiting the familiar wonders of the cave—wonders dubbed with rather over-descriptive names, such as “The Drawing-Room,” “The Cathedral,” Aladdin’s Palace,” and so on.

   • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter V, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

     As a matter of fact its narrow ornate façade presented not a single quiet space that the eyes might rest on after a tiring attempt to follow and codify the arabesques, foliations, and intricate vermiculations of what some disrespectfully dubbed as “near-aissance.”

   • 2013 June 22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70:

     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.

   • 2023 December 27, Stephen Roberts, “Bradshaw's Britain: the way to Weymouth”, in RAIL, number 999, page 52:

     Stephen reigned from 1135-1154, that nasty period of our history dubbed 'The Anarchy', when forces loyal to Stephen contested the throne with those of Henry I's daughter Matilda, who by rights should have been queen. Stephen, her cousin, plonked his own posterior on the throne.

3. (transitive) To deem.

   Synonyms: consider, think of; see also Thesaurus:deem

   • 1733–1737, Alexander Pope, [Imitations of Horace], London: […] R[obert] Dodsley [et al.]:

     A man of wealth is dubbed a man of worth.

4. To clothe or invest; to ornament; to adorn.

   Synonyms: deck out, embellish; see also Thesaurus:decorate

   • 1470–1485 (date produced), Thomas Malory, “(please specify the chapter)”, in [Le Morte Darthur], (please specify the book number), [London: […] by William Caxton], published 31 July 1485, →OCLC; republished as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, Le Morte Darthur […], London: David Nutt, […], 1889, →OCLC:

     His diadem was dropped down / Dubbed with stones.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

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.
      • 1808, Annual Register:

        For dressing or dubbing cloths, either wet or dry, otherwise than by green cards and pickards

   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.
      • 1689, James Chetham, The Anglers Vade Mecum:

        if you can dub a Fly of the exact colour of the Natural Fly, Fish at that instant take, it's sufficient

6. To prepare (a gamecock) for fighting, by trimming the hackles and cutting off the comb and wattles.

1505-1515 This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

dub (third-person singular simple present dubs, present participle dubbing, simple past and past participle dubbed)

1. To make a noise by brisk drumbeats.
   • 1616–1619 (first performance), John Fletcher, “The Mad Lover”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, Act I, scene i:

     Now the drum dubb's.

2. To do something badly.
3. (golf) To execute a shot poorly.

dub (plural dubs)

1. (rare) A blow, thrust, or poke.
   • 1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC:

     And kettle-drums, whose sullen dub
     Sounds like the hooping of a tub

2. (golf) A poorly executed shot.

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

dub (plural dubs)

1. (slang, now historical) An unskillful, awkward person. [from the later part of the 19th c]
   • 1936, P. G. Wodehouse, There's Always Golf‎^[1], London: The Strand Magazine:

     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.

   • 1969, Robert L. Vann, The Competitor, volumes 2-3, page 135:

     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!

From a shortening of the word double.

dub (third-person singular simple present dubs, present participle dubbing, simple past and past participle dubbed)

1. To add sound to film or change audio on film. [from the first half of the 20th c]
2. To make a copy from an original or master audio tape.
4. To replace the original soundtrack of a film with a synchronized translation
5. To mix audio tracks to produce a new sound; to remix.

• ADR
• revoice

dub (countable and uncountable, plural dubs)

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.
   • 2020 April 23, Alexis Petridis, “The Rolling Stones: Living in a Ghost Town review – their best new song in years”, in The Guardian:

     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.

3. (music, uncountable) A trend in music starting in 2009, in which bass distortion is synced off timing to electronic dance music.
   • 2019 January 18, 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:

     But I think my bass playing is definitely dub-influenced.

   • 2020 July 20, Arun Chakal, “The Worked-Up Sound of Drum & Bass in Russia and Eastern Europe”, in Bandcamp Daily:

     Dyl’s polyrhythmic grooves on The Subsurface Project fuse dub techno and drum & bass, mixing modular sounds with hints of warm, jittery jungle.

   • 2020 August 3, Kane, “The Extended Cut: Zero T - Former Self EP [The North Quarter]”, in Magnetic Magazine:

     It reminded me of that classic Full Cycle vibe of jazzy soulful sounds blending with dub bass and fx.

4. (slang, countable) A piece of graffiti in metallic colour with a thick black outline.
   • 2001, Nancy Macdonald, The Graffiti Subculture, page 84:

     […] we climbed up the scaffolding and did these gold little dubs and you couldn't see them.

   • 2011, Justin Rollins, The Lost Boyz: A Dark Side of Graffiti, page 34:

     The year 1998 was alive with graffiti and trains pulling up with dubs on their sides.

5. (countable) The replacement of a voice part in a movie or cartoon, particularly with a translation; an instance of dubbing.

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

dub (plural dubs)

1. (UK, dialect) A pool or puddle.
   • 1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, →OCLC:

     “Has he nae friends?” said she, in a tearful voice.
     “That has he so!” cried Alan, “if we could but win to them!—friends and rich friends, beds to lie in, food to eat, doctors to see to him—and here he must tramp in the dubs and sleep in the heather like a beggarman.”

From shortening of double dime (“twenty”).

dub (plural dubs)

1. (slang) A twenty-dollar sack of marijuana.
2. (slang) A wheel rim measuring 20 inches or more.
   • 2003 January 7, “In da Club” (track 5), in Get Rich or Die Tryin'‎^[2], performed by 50 Cent:

     When I pull up out front, you see the Benz on dubs.

• dub sack

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

dub (third-person singular simple present dubs, present participle dubbing, simple past and past participle dubbed)

1. (obsolete, UK, thieves' cant) To open or close.
   • 1828, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, chapter LXXXIII, in Pelham: or The Adventures of a Gentleman‎^[3], page 402:

     "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."

• dub up

dub (plural dubs)

1. (obsolete, UK, thieves' cant) A lock.
2. (obsolete, UK, thieves' cant) A key, especially a master key; a lock pick.
   • 1789, George Parker, Life's Painter of Variegated Characters in Public and Private Life, page 162:

     […] 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 […]

dub (plural dubs)

2. Clipping of double-u.
   • 1997, Nelson Howell, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Microsoft Visual InterDev, Que Pub, →ISBN:

     World Wide Web or WWW
     Pronouncing this "dub dub dub" (with no rub-a) will definitely establish you as an insider.

   • 2018, Corey Pein, Live Work Work Work Die: A Journey into the Savage Heart of Silicon Valley, Metropolitan Books, →ISBN, page 119:

     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.”

   1. (video games, Internet slang) A win.

      I haven't had a dub in a few games.

• Vee Dub

dub (plural dubs)

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

• Henry Yule, A[rthur] C[oke] Burnell (1903) “dub”, in William Crooke, editor, Hobson-Jobson […] , London: John Murray, […].

• BDU, BUD, Bud, DBU, bud

Inherited from Old Czech dub, from Proto-Slavic *dǫbъ (“oak tree, oak”).

• IPA^(key): [ˈdup]
• Hyphenation: dub
• Rhymes: -up
• Homophones: dup, Dub

dub m inan (relational adjective dubový)

1. oak, oak tree

• “dub”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
• “dub”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989
• “dub”, in Internetová jazyková příručka (in Czech), 2008–2025

• bud

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *dǫbъ.

• IPA^(key): /ˈdup/
• Rhymes: -up
• Syllabification: dub

dub m inan

1. oak

• Muka, Arnošt (1921, 1928) “dub”, in Słownik dolnoserbskeje rěcy a jeje narěcow (in German), St. Petersburg, Prague: ОРЯС РАН, ČAVU; Reprinted Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag, 2008
• Starosta, Manfred (1999) “dub”, in Dolnoserbsko-nimski słownik / Niedersorbisch-deutsches Wörterbuch (in German), Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *dǫbъ (“oak tree, oak”).

• IPA^(key): (13^th CE) /ˈdub/
• IPA^(key): (15^th CE) /ˈdup/

dub m inan

1. oak, oak tree

• Czech: dub

• Jan Gebauer (1903–1916) “dub”, in Slovník staročeský (in Czech), Prague: Česká grafická společnost "unie", Česká akademie císaře Františka Josefa pro vědy, slovesnost a umění

From Proto-Celtic *dubus (“black”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewbʰ- (“black, deep”).

• IPA^(key): [duβ]

dub

1. black
2. morally dark, dire, gloomy, melancholy

• Irish: dubh
• Manx: doo
• Scottish Gaelic: dubh

dub n (genitive dubo)

1. black pigment, ink
   • c. 800, Würzburg Glosses on the Pauline Epistles, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 499–712, Wb. 15^a10

     ó dub glosses atramento

   • c. 800–825, Diarmait, Milan Glosses on the Psalms, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 7–483, Ml. 13^d1

     in maith a n-dubso amne

     is this ink good thus?

   • c. 845, St Gall Glosses on Priscian, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1975, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. II, pp. 49–224, Sg. 217^a

     Memmbrum naue, droch dub! Ó, ní epur na haill.

     New parchment, bad ink! Oh, I say nothing more.

2. gall

• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “dub”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

Inherited from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *tubah, from Proto-Austronesian *tubah.

• IPA^(key): /dub/, [ðup]

dub

1. dynamite, bomb
2. derris (vine in Legume family whose roots are used as poison to catch fish)

• dub in Palauan Language Online: Palauan-English Dictionary, at tekinged.com.
• dub in Palauan-English Dictionary, at trussel2.com.
• dub in Lewis S. Josephs, Edwin G. McManus, Masa-aki Emesiochel (1977) Palauan-English Dictionary, University Press of Hawaii, →ISBN, page 83.

From Proto-Zapotec *tokwaʔ.

dub

1. agave

• López Antonio, Joaquín, Jones, Ted, Jones, Kris (2012) Vocabulario breve del Zapoteco de San Juan Guelavía‎^[4] (in Spanish), second electronic edition, Tlalpan, D.F.: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, A.C., pages 14, 26

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *dǫbъ, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰanw-.

dub m inan (Cyrillic spelling дуб) (Croatia, archaic)

1. oak (wood)
2. oak tree

   Synonym: hrast

   • c. 1840, Dragutin Rakovac (translating Samuel Tomášik), Hej, Slaveni:

     Stijena puca, dub se lama, zemlja nek’ se trese!

     The rock cracks, the oak breaks, let the earth quake!

• Dubrovnik

• “dub”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2025
• “dub”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2025
• “dub”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2025

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *dǫbъ.

• IPA^(key): [dup]

• Audio:

  (file)

dub m inan (relational adjective dubový, diminutive dubček or dúbok)

1. oak, oak tree

• “dub”, in Slovníkový portál Jazykovedného ústavu Ľ. Štúra SAV [Dictionary portal of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Science] (in Slovak), https://slovnik.juls.savba.sk, 2003–2025

dub m (plural dubs)

1. (music) dub

dub

1. romanization of 𒁾 (dub)

• IPA^(key): /ˈdup/
• Rhymes: -up
• Hyphenation: dub
• Syllabification: dub

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *dǫ̑bъ. Cognate with Lower Sorbian dub.

dub m inan (diminutive dubičk or dubik, augmentative dubisko)

1. oak

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

dub

1. second/third-person singular personal of dubić

• “dub” in Soblex

dub

1. due to, because of

• dubä

From Proto-Hmong *qrɛŋᴬ (“black”), related to Proto-Mien *qri̯ɛkᴰ (“black”), though the details are unclear due to irregular rime and tone correspondences.^[1]

• IPA^(key): /du˥/

dub

1. black
2. dark

• Heimbach, Ernest E. (1979) White Hmong — English Dictionary‎^[5], SEAP Publications, →ISBN.

• (Standard Zhuang) IPA^(key): /tup˧/
• Tone numbers: dup⁸
• Hyphenation: dub

From Proto-Tai *dupᴬ (“to pound”); cognate with Thai ทุบ (túp), Lao ທຸບ (thup), Shan ထုပ်ႉ (thṵ̂p). Also compare Cantonese 𢱕 (dap6, “to pound; to strike”).

dub (Sawndip forms 𭡡 or 𰔥 or 𭡫, 1957–1982 spelling dub)

1. to hit; to strike

   Synonym: moeb

2. to strike with a hammer; to hammer
3. to castrate (a male water buffalo)

dub (1957–1982 spelling dub)

1. to harrow (a paddy)