blubber

UK: /ˈblʌbə^r/ US: /ˈblʌbɚ/ ,(blub′ər)

WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2025

blub•ber /ˈblʌbɚ/   n. 

[uncountable]
1. Zoology the layer of fat below the skin of a whale.
2. excess body fat:
   With all that blubber, you should go on a diet.

v. 

3. to weep or cry noisily and without restraint: [no object]
   blubbering about how I never cared about her.
   [~ + that clause]
   blubbering that I never cared about her.

WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2025

blub•ber  (blub′ər), n. 

1. Zoology the fat layer between the skin and muscle of whales and other cetaceans, from which oil is made.
2. excess body fat.
3. an act of weeping noisily and without restraint.

v.i. 

4. to weep noisily and without restraint:
   Stop blubbering and tell me what's wrong.

v.t. 

5. to say, esp. incoherently, while weeping:
   The child seemed to be blubbering something about a lost ring.
6. to contort or disfigure (the features) with weeping.

adj. 

7. disfigured with blubbering;
   blubbery:
   She dried her blubber eyes.
8. fatty;
   swollen;
   puffed out (usually used in combination):
   thick, blubber lips; blubber-faced.

• 1250–1300; Middle English bluber bubble, bubbling water, entrails, whale oil; apparently imitative

blub′ber•er, n. 
blub′ber•ing•ly, adv. 

Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::

blubber / ˈblʌbə/ verb

1. to sob without restraint
2. to utter while sobbing
3. (transitive) to make (the face) wet and swollen or disfigured by crying

noun

1. a thick insulating layer of fatty tissue below the skin of aquatic mammals such as the whale: used by humans as a source of oil
2. excessive and flabby body fat
3. the act or an instance of weeping without restraint
4. 
   an informal name for jellyfish

adjective

1. (often in combination) swollen or fleshy: blubber-faced, blubber-lips

Etymology: 12th Century: perhaps from Low German blubbern to bubble, of imitative origin

ˈblubberer noun