DAUB • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Daub

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/dɔb/ Listen

noun

Daub n.

1.

A viscous, sticky application; a spot smeared or daubed; a smear.

2.

(Paint.) A picture coarsely executed. "Did you... take a look at the grand picture?... 'T is a melancholy daub, my lord."

verb

Daub v. t. (past & past part. daubed; pres. part. daubing)

1.

To smear with soft, adhesive matter, as pitch, slime, mud, etc.; to plaster; to bedaub; to besmear. "She took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch."

2.

To paint in a coarse or unskillful manner. "If a picture is daubed with many bright and glaring colors, the vulgar admire it is an excellent piece." "A lame, imperfect piece, rudely daubed over."

3.

To cover with a specious or deceitful exterior; to disguise; to conceal. "So smooth he daubed his vice with show of virtue."

4.

To flatter excessively or glossy. (R.) "I can safely say, however, that, without any daubing at all, I am very sincerely your very affectionate, humble servant."

5.

To put on without taste; to deck gaudily. (R.) "Let him be daubed with lace."

Daub v. i. To smear; to play the flatterer. "His conscience... will not daub nor flatter."

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Etymology of 'Daub'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Daub" Quotes from Famous Books

... with ME. It is Lucy's tragedy. I've seen the magnificent ancient palace of the Wolfburghs. It is a flat! In the very house where I went to-day. The third story flat just under the attics where the poor Joneses daub portraits. I passed the open doors and I saw the shabby old tables and chairs and the princesses—two fat old women in frowzy wrappers, and their hair in papers, eating that soup of pork and cabbages ...

— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis

... such rude things about her life after the sovereign's death. The historical "penance" that on the stage seemed so effective was, as we know, really unavailing. Dramatic license is a great thing, and it is pardonable when it is used with discrimination. But made to do duty as a daub, it is unjustifiable. What is the use of going down into history as one thing, if you are to be bobbed up on the stage, after the passage of centuries, as another? To the feminine playwright, the line that separates saints from sinners ...

— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... those big things—picture or church or statue—I kept saying to myself: 'You lucky devil, you, to be able to provide such a sight as that for eyes that can make some good use of it! Isn't it better to give fifty fellows a chance to paint or carve or build, than to be able to daub canvas or punch clay in a corner ...

— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... in red letters "Sir Watkin Wynn: 1742." It was doubtless the portrait of the Sir Watkin who, in 1745 was committed to the tower under suspicion of being suspected of holding Jacobite opinions, and favouring the Pretender. The portrait was a very poor daub, but I looked at it long and attentively as a memorial of Wales at a ...

— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... bewildered as it were, thinking of the tale as if it had been told of some other family than ours. Mechanically the mother raised her eyes; the first object they chanced to meet was a rude water-colour drawing, kept, coarse daub as it was, because it was the only reminder we had of what never could be recalled—one red-cheeked child with a hoop, staring at another red-cheeked child with a nosegay—supposed to represent ...

— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

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