dub
Noun pluraldubs
Pluraldubs
- 1To give a name, title, or nickname to someone or something.
The press dubbed the scandal a national embarrassment.
Reviewers quickly dub any clever gadget a game-changer.
Similarcall, name, term, style, entitle
Note
What began as knighting widened into any bestowing of a name, and the verb is now informal. It is most at home in the passive: wonders dubbed with over-descriptive names, a period dubbed 'The Anarchy'. The name is usually one that others give, and it is sometimes unwelcome. In The Economist, private-equity managers bristle at being dubbed mere financiers.
- 2To replace a film's original soundtrack with a synchronized version in another language.
The studio dubbed the Korean drama into English for streaming.
Distributors dub blockbuster films into dozens of languages.
- 3To add sound to a film or alter its existing audio.
The team dubbed new sound effects over the chase scene.
Editors dub ambient noise onto silent footage to make scenes feel alive.
Note
Short for double, which explains the whole family: to dub was to lay a second track over or alongside a film's sound. Adding effects, re-recording dialogue and replacing whole soundtracks all start here. The version most viewers know is dubbing into another language.
- 4A replacement recording for one or more voice parts in a movie or cartoon, often in another language, or an instance of making this replacement.
The English dub of the series featured several well-known actors.
Some viewers will always prefer subtitles to a dub.
- 5To confer knighthood on someone, traditionally by a tap on each shoulder with the flat of a sword.
The monarch dubbed the young warrior a knight before the assembled court.
Medieval lords could dub their most loyal followers knights.
Similarknight
Note
The ceremonial root of the word: Old English dubbian already meant to knight someone with a stroke of the sword, and the Old French adober behind it meant to equip with arms. The verb takes a person and often a title (dub him, dubbed a knight), a pattern the everyday naming sense still follows. Shakespeare's Third Part of Henry the Sixth gives it as a command: unsheathe your sword, and dub him presently.
- 6A win, especially in a competitive video game.
Their squad picked up another dub in the ranked tournament.
One more dub and they advance to the finals.
Note
Gamer slang that runs through the letter: W stands for win, spoken aloud as the clipped letter name. It is countable, so players get a dub, take the dub, or haven't had a dub in a few games. It belongs to online play and chat rather than to sports reporting.
- 7A style of reggae music created by mixing and reworking different audio tracks.
The DJ blended classic dub with modern electronic beats.
Dub emerged in Jamaican studios during the early 1970s.
Note
A genre name, used without an article, that grew out of the studio practice of remixing tracks. In reviews it readily becomes a modifier. Alexis Petridis hears a 'vaguely dub-influenced space' in a Rolling Stones song that breaks down to little more than an echoing organ with a vintage reggae flavor.
- 8A remix of a track, mainly instrumental, in which some or all of the vocals have been stripped out.
The label released a dub of the hit single for club play.
Producers cut a dub with the vocals stripped away.
Similarremix, instrumental, version
Note
The countable member of the music family: a dub is one track, a version with the singing partly or wholly stripped out. By contrast, the reggae style is uncountable and names a whole genre. A record label releases a dub of a song the way it releases a remix of one.
- 9
- 10To produce a duplicate of an audio recording from its original or master tape.
The technician dubbed the master tape several times for distribution.
Labels dub the original recordings before shipping them to radio stations.
Similarcopy, duplicate, transfer
Note
Here the doubling behind the word is most literal, since one tape becomes two. The usual constructions are dub a tape and dub copies from a master. It is studio vocabulary and shares only its spelling with giving a name, which comes from a different source.
- 11Clipping of double-u.
She rattled off the address as dub dub dub before the company name.
Instead of saying double-u three times, he just said dub dub dub.
Note
Spoken shorthand for the letter W, almost always doubled or tripled. Read aloud, www becomes 'dub dub dub', and the Worldwide Developers Conference, WWDC, is 'Dub Dub' to its regulars. Nelson Howell's The Complete Idiot's Guide to Microsoft Visual InterDev (1997) promised that the pronunciation would mark you as an insider, and that casual, techie flavor remains.
- 12
- 13A wheel rim measuring 20 inches or more in diameter.
The custom shop fitted the coupe with gleaming dubs.
A single dub can cost more than a used engine.
Note
Car slang that usually appears in the plural and after on. 50 Cent's 'In da Club' (2003) has 'the Benz on dubs', a car riding on twenty-inch rims. The number comes from the same double dime as the twenty-dollar bag. The word is at home in hip-hop lyrics and custom-car talk, and out of place in a tire catalog.
- 14To hit a shot poorly, especially in golf.
She dubbed the approach and left the ball short of the green.
Nervous players tend to dub short shots near the hole.
Similarmishit, flub, duff, fluff
Note
A golfer's verb for a shot that goes wrong at contact, typically when the ground is struck behind the ball or the ball is caught thin, so it travels low and weakly. It takes the shot as its object: dub a chip, dub an approach. The noun a dubbed shot is its partner, and the awkward player is the person usually found producing one.
- 15
- 16A music trend beginning in 2009 in which distorted bass is synced off the timing of electronic dance music.
Dub dominated the club scene for several years after it emerged.
Producers layered dub over four-on-the-floor rhythms to give tracks an unsettled groove.
Similardubstep
Note
The post-2009 sense works mostly as a modifier in music writing, in phrases such as dub techno and dub bass. The same compounds are used of the reggae style, so context decides which is meant. When distorted bass is pushed off the beat of electronic dance music, it is this one.
- 17To consider or declare someone or something to be a particular thing.
Reviewers dubbed the film an instant classic.
Officials dub the new policy a turning point for the city.
Similarconsider, deem, judge, count, hold
Note
Here the label is a verdict rather than a name. Alexander Pope's line 'A man of wealth is dubbed a man of worth' is about the world judging riches as merit, not about anyone being christened. The boundary with giving a name is thin. When the complement is an opinion (a classic, a man of worth) rather than a title, this is the sense at work.
- 18An unskillful, awkward person, especially one clumsy or inept at a task.
The foreman dismissed him as a hopeless dub on the worksite.
They laughed at the dubs fumbling through the drill.
Similarbungler, klutz, duffer, oaf, fumbler
Oppositeexpert
Note
Slang from the late 1880s that is now historical. The word is imitative and kin to flub and flubdub. P. G. Wodehouse uses it of a poor golfer, 'a prominent local dub' who has sliced into the rough, so it sits easily beside the bad shot. In current writing it reads as period color, best used to evoke that era rather than as a live insult.
- 19
- 20A twenty-dollar bag of marijuana.
- 21To clothe or dress someone, or to ornament and adorn something.
- 22To produce a sound by beating a drum briskly.
- 23A piece of graffiti painted in metallic colors and finished with a thick black outline.
- 24To trim the neck feathers and cut away the comb and wattles of a gamecock so that it is ready to fight.
- 25A pool or puddle, especially a small one of standing water.
- 26To strike, rub, or dress a surface so that it becomes smooth; also, to dab.
- 27To dress or smooth timber with an adze.
- 28To raise a nap on cloth by working its surface with teasels.
- 29To rub or dress leather with grease, as in the process of currying it.
- 30To dress a fishing fly, especially by twisting fur or fiber onto the tying thread.
- 31A small copper coin formerly used in India.
- 32In old thieves' slang, to open or shut something, especially a door.
"Crash the cull—down with him—down with him before he dubs the jigger. Tip him the degan, Fib, fake him through and through; if he pikes we shall all be scragged."
1828, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Pelham - 33In old thieves' slang, a lock.
- 34In old thieves' slang, a key, especially one that opens many locks, or a tool for picking a lock.
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Origins
From Middle English dubben, from Old English dubbian ("to knight by striking with a sword"), which came from Old French adober ("to equip with arms; adorn"). Both trace back to Proto-Germanic *dub- ("to hit, strike") and ultimately to a Proto-Indo-European root, with cognates such as Icelandic dubba.
Recorded around 1885-90. Imitative in origin; compare also flub and flubdub.
From a shortening of the word double.
From a shortening of double dime ("twenty").