clabber, n.
(ˈklæbə(r))
[a. Irish and Gaelic clabar mud.]
1. dial. Also clauber. Mud. Hence clabbery a., muddy.
| 1824 MacTaggart Gallov. Encycl., Clabber, any soft dirty matter. 1880 Antrim & Down Gloss. ‘They clodded clabber at me.’ ‘Don't put the dog into that clabbery hole.’ 1890 Service Notandums 114 Whaur it was a' clauber yesterday, it's as hard as a horn the day. 1892 Yeats C'tess Kathleen i. 16 The dead leaves and clauber of four forests Cling to my foot-sole. 1921 G. O'Donovan Vocations v. 83 Good people..that wouldn't throw a lump of soft clauber at a cat. |
2. = bonny-clabber, milk naturally curdled.
| 1634 Ford Perkin Warbeck iii. ii, Healths in usquebaugh and bonny clabbore. 1828 Webster, Clabber or Bonny-clabber. 1860 Bartlett Dict. Amer. s.v. Bonny-clabber, It is sometimes called simply clabber. 1884 J. G. Bourke Snake Dance of Moquis xxx. 354 We feasted heartily on mush⁓melons and clabber. |
Hence clabber v. trans., and intr. to curdle, as milk. Hence ˈclabbered ppl. a.
| 1880 in Webster Suppl. 1921 R. L. Alsaker Eating for Health i. iii. 47 Clabbered milk and buttermilk are easily digested. 1938 M. K. Rawlings Yearling xix. 222 She needed rain-water, too, to clabber the milk. The milk turned rankly sour in the heat but would not clabber. 1968 Washington Post 5 July A 18/4 Then it had to be left to clabber—or curdle—before it could be churned. |