cubby local.
(ˈkʌbɪ)
[Related to cub n.2, or to the LG. words there referred to.]
1. = cubby-hole, -house.
| 1868 Congress. Globe 2 June 2762/3 [Many of the national banks] keep a little cubby of an office, loan no money,..and yet draw interest on their circulation. 1887 Harper's Bazaar 1 Oct. 675 The odds and ends relegated to this cubby [the lumber closet]. 1888 W. Somerset Word-bk., Cubby, Cubby-hole, an out-of-the-way snuggery, such as children are fond of creeping into: a hiding-place. |
2. In Orkney and Shetland: A straw basket.
| 1876 D. Gorrie Summ. & Winters in Orkneys i. 13 Pock⁓ponies went ambling along under the equal-poised weight of pendent cubbies. 1887 Jamieson's Dict. Suppl., Cubbie, a small cassie or basket, often made of heather. |
Hence ˈcubby-hole, ˈcubby-house, (a) a nursery or children's name for a snug, cosy place; a little house built by children in play; (b) a very small and confined room or closet.
| 1842 Akerman Wiltsh. Gloss., Cubby-hole, a snug place. 1853 Kane Grinnell Exp. xxvii. (1856) 226 One little fellow..scampered back again..to his cubby-hole on the deck. 1880 New Virginians II. 122 There was a kind of cubby-house in the hay-shed, where the hay had been cut out. 1881 Leicestersh. Gloss., Cubby-house and Cubby-hutch, a hutch or coop for rabbits or other small animals. 1884 Century Mag. XXIX. 45/1 Cubby holes, dark cellars, uninspected closets. |