ˈwoubit, ˈoobit dial.
Forms: α. 5 wolbode (welbode), wolle bode; 5 welbede, 6 wolbede, 7 wolbet, volbet; 7 wool-beard, woollbed, 8 wool bed. β. Sc. 6 wowbat, woubet (voubet), wobat, 9 vowbet, woubit. γ. north. and Sc. 7 oubut, 9 oubit, oobit, ubit, yeubit, hoobit, hubert; obeed.
[ME. wolbode and wolbede, app. f. wol wool n. with obscure second element; the form -bode may be connected with boud or budde.]
A hairy caterpillar, esp. the larva of the tiger-moth; a ‘woolly bear’. Also transf. (and attrib.) applied contemptuously to a person.
| α 14.. Nom. in Wr.-Wü lcker 706/15 Hic multipes, a welbode. 1483 Cath. Angl. 423/1 A wolle bode (A. Wolbode), multipes. 1496 Treat. Fishing w. Angle (1883) 24 Bynde it on your hoke with fletchers sylke and make it rough lyke a welbede. 15.. Ortus Vocab. (Shrewbury MS.) Wolbede. 1601 Holland Pliny xxix. v. II. 369 The Wooll-beads or Caterpillers,..which are a kind of earth⁓wormes.., all hairie, having many feet, and courbing arch⁓wise as they creepe. 1662 R. Venables Exper. Angler iii. 27 Those rough insects (which some call Wooll-beds, because of their wool-like outside, and rings of divers colours). 1681 J. Chetham Angler's Vade-m. iv. §8 (1700) 35 Palmer-worm, Palmer-fly, Wooll-bed, and Cankers, Are all one Worm. 1787 Best Angling (ed. 2) 18. |
| β 1508 Dunbar Tua Mariit Wemen 89 Ane wallidrag, ane worme, ane auld wobat carle. c 1560 A. Scott Poems (S.T.S.) xxxiv. 94 Swa ladeis will nocht sounȝe With waistit wowbattis rottin. a 1585 Montgomerie Flyting 268 Wan⁓shapen woubet [v.r wowbat, wolbet], of the weirds invyit. Ibid. 614 An warloch, an warwolfe, an voubet but haire. 1802 Sibbald Chron. S.P. Gloss., Woubit, Oubit, one of those worms which appear as if covered with wool. 1809 Edin. Rev. XIV. 143 The hairy vowbet, or yeubit,..is the name given by boys [in Berwickshire] to the caterpillar of the tiger-moth. |
| γ 1608 Topsell Serpents 103 The English-Northren-men call the hairie Catterpillers, Oubuts. c 1800 Ayrs. Gl. Surv. 693 (Jam.) Ubit, dwarfish. 1825 Jamieson, Oobit, a hairy worm, with alternate rings of black and dark yellow. 1851 Kingsley Poems, The Oubit, It was an hairy oubit, sae proud he crept alang. 1861 J. Brown Horæ Subs. Ser. ii. 117 Very like a huge caterpillar or hairy oobit. 1865– in dialect glossaries, etc. (see Eng. Dial. Dict.). |