pub

Pluralpubs

Formspubs, pubbing, pubbed

1. 1
   nounCommonwealthIrelandUKcountable

   A public house: an establishment that sells drinks, mostly alcoholic, to be drunk on the premises, and also offers food and sometimes entertainment such as live music or television.

   They spent Sunday afternoon in the pub watching the football.

   The village pub does a decent roast and has live music on Friday nights.

   Similarbar, tavern, inn

   Note

   People across the UK, Ireland and the Commonwealth clipped public house to this everyday word. It usually takes the even when no particular pub is meant: friends go to the pub, or meet in the pub for a chinwag. The same three letters also shorten publication, publisher and public server, so in an office or an online game the setting steers the reader away from the bar.

2. 2
   nounabbreviationclipping

   Clipping of publication.

   She needs one more first-author pub before she goes on the job market.

   The agency's newest pub, a guide to flood safety, is free to download.

   Note

   Of the things publication can mean, the clipping keeps the countable one, the finished item, so it is counted like any object: a new pub, registered pubs, a researcher's first-author pubs. It is working shorthand among people who produce or list publications; general prose is clearer with the full word.

3. 3
   verbcolloquialintransitive

   To go to one or more public houses, or pubs.

   Visitors who pub along the harbor can try a different local beer in each one.

   They pubbed until closing time and then caught the last bus home.

   Note

   Going to the pub has its own informal verb, and its forms double the b: pubbing, pubbed. The same forms belong to the clipped verb for publishing, and an object tells the two apart: they pubbed until closing time is drinking, while the magazine pubbed the interview is publishing.

4. 4
   nounslangcountable

   A public server for an online game, which any player can join, unlike a private one.

   Pubs are fine for warming up, but serious teams scrim on private servers.

   He got kicked from the pub for spamming the voice chat.

   Note

   Gamers made this clipping of public server, and it often turns up in the plural. Pubs are the easy option, open to strangers and quick to find, but whether play there is fair depends on whoever runs the server, so players who want a clean match go looking for private ones. It stays slang, at home in gaming chat.

5. 5
   nounabbreviationclipping

   Clipping of publisher. Rare and informal.

   Pubs say it's out of print, but it was supposed to have been reissued.

   1979, “Barbara G. (classified advertisement)”, in Gay Community News

   Note

   In a sentence it is usually the one doing something (pubs say, decide, reissue) because it names the company behind a book. A 1979 classified ad in Gay Community News reports that “pubs say it's out of print.” In the plural it looks exactly like the clipped publication, so the verb tells them apart: publishers speak and decide, publications get read and listed.

6. 6
   verbcolloquialtransitive

   To publish: to bring out a book, article or other work for the public.

   We plan to pub the second edition in March, once the corrections are in.

   The magazine pubbed the interview online before the print issue came out.

   Similarpublish, release

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