blubber

See blobber, blob, bleb.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈblʌbɚ/
• Rhymes: -ʌbə(r)

blubber (countable and uncountable, plural blubbers)

1. A fatty layer of adipose tissue found immediately beneath the epidermis.
2. Fatty tissue.

   Synonym: adipose tissue

3. The thick coat of fat worn by many Arctic animals, such as sea lions, and Antarctic animals, such as penguins; used to insulate warmth in the animal's body.
   • 2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:

     The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. […] It was used to make kerosene, the main fuel for artificial lighting after overfishing led to a shortage of whale blubber.

4. (obsolete) A bubble.
   • Henryson

     At his mouth a blubber stood of foam.

• sea-blubber

blubber (third-person singular simple present blubbers, present participle blubbering, simple past and past participle blubbered)

1. To make noises or broken words while crying.
   • Jonathan Swift

     She wept, she blubbered, and she tore her hair.

   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 2:

     But no more of this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling, and there is plenty of that yet to come.

2. (archaic, transitive) To swell or disfigure (the face) with weeping; to wet with tears.
   • Prior

     Dear Cloe, how blubbered is that pretty face!

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. In Six Volumes, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: Printed by A[ndrew] Millar, […], OCLC 928184292:

     [S]he hastily retired, taking with her her little girl, whose eyes were all over blubbered at the melancholy news she heard of Jones, who used to call her his little wife, and not only gave her many playthings, but spent whole hours in playing with her himself.

• beblubber

• bubbler

blubber

1. First-person singular present of blubbern.
2. Imperative singular of blubbern.