Link Centre Dictionary

cub

UK/kʊb/ US/kʌb/ fairly common slang
noun (3) verb (1)

noun

1.
2.
3.

the young of certain carnivorous mammals such as the bear or wolf or lion

Synonyms

verb

1.

give birth to cubs

  • “bears cub every year”

Origin

From earlier cubbe. Origin unknown. According to Pokorny, from Proto-Germanic *kubb-, from Proto-Indo-European *gup- (“round object, knoll”), from *gew- (“to bend, curve, convex, arch, vault”). Related terms include cup (cf. cupboard), coffin, cove, etc, essentially “chamber”, thus cub maybe initially derived from the sense “den”, or maybe “womb”. A probable cognate is also found in North Germanic: dialectal Swedish kubbe, kybbe, köbbe, kibb, Danish kippe (“calf”). Also compare Icelandic and Old Norse kobbi (“seal”), Old Irish cuib (“whelp”). Compare also English cob. Originally, the meaning was specifically "young fox", in which sense it has largely replaced English whelp.

Phrases

  • cub reporter
  • leopard cub
  • lion cub
  • tiger cub
  • wolf cub

Related words

Broader terms

Narrower terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.