DAUB • DICTIONARY ONE.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."

See images of 'Daub'

Etymology of 'Daub'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Daub" Quotes from Famous Books

... don't mean transcendent ones) can't amass a capital of forty-five thousand francs in centimes, which represents a permanent income equal to our salaries, which are, after all, precarious. In twelve years a grocer can earn enough to give him ten thousand francs a year; a painter can daub a mile of canvas and be decorated with the Legion of honor, or pose as a neglected genius. A literary man becomes professor of something or other, or a journalist at a hundred francs for a thousand lines; he writes 'feuilletons,' or he gets into Saint-Pelagie ...

— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac

... bind up; it must be an acceptable thing, not displeasing; it must be "as the voice of harpers harping with their harps," but not "as the voice of many waters," or "as the voice of great thunders." Thus would many heal the wound of the daughter of Zion slightly, and daub the wall with untempered mortar, and so far comply with the sinful humours and inclinations of men, as, in effect, to harden them in evil, and to strengthen their hands in their wickedness; or at least, if men be moralised, then to trouble them no farther. Saith not the Apostle, ...

— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... to be an artist, than their whole happiness centred on getting Joseph among them. In spite of a promise not to go to the Institute which his mother exacted from him, the child often slipped into Regnauld the painter's studio, where he was encouraged to daub canvas. When the widow complained that the bargain was not kept, Chaudet's pupils assured her that Regnauld was not Chaudet, and they hadn't the bringing up of her son, with other impertinences; and the atrocious young scamps composed a song with a hundred ...

— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... picturesque, even if objectionable. Character is expressed in dirt; the bright and shining school-boy face is devoid of interest, an artificial product, quite unnatural; the smutty street urchin is an actor on life's stage, every daub, spot, and line an essential ...

— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... me some years ago that his wife was very fond of painting, but that for a long time he never could see any beauty in her paintings; they all looked like a daub to him. One day his eyes troubled him and he went to see an oculist. The man looked in amazement ...

— Men of the Bible • Dwight Moody

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