Definition of "blob"

blob¹

/blɒb/

noun
plural blobs
1. A shapeless or amorphous mass; a vague shape or amount, especially of a liquid or semisolid substance; a clump, group or collection that lacks definite shape.
  Quotations
  Only the outermost blob on either side in map 2 displays misalignment.
  1869, Norman Lockyer et al., Nature
  It was a colourful vase with red and white hoops on the lid, and red bands above and below the main frieze. These bands also carry a metope pattern in white of triple lines and blobs, which can just be distinguished on the photographs.
  1895, The Annual of the British School at Athens
  But there, on the very top, is a hollow full of water, with a sandy bottom; with a blob of jelly stuck to the side, and some mussels.
  1922, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1, in Jacob's Room
2. (astronomy) A large cloud of gas.
  1. Ellipsis of extended Lyman-Alpha blob (a huge body of gas that may be the precursor to a galaxy).
3. (dialect) A bubble; a bleb.
4. A small freshwater fish (Cottus bairdii); the miller's thumb.
5. The partially inflated air bag used in the sport of blobbing.
6. (sports, slang) A score of zero.
  Quotations
  A gentleman named W. Shakespeare scored a blob in the Worcestershire v. Lancashire match. We understand that he got out because the ball pitched on a "damned spot."
  1925, Punch, volume 168, page 561
verb
third-person singular simple present blobs, present participle blobbing, simple past and past participle blobbed
1. (transitive) To drop in the form of a blob or blobs.
  Quotations
  Bones put the tiny crimson speck between his slides, blobbed a drop of oil on top, and focused the microscope.
  1917, Edgar Wallace, chapter 6, in The Keepers of the King's Peace‎
  […] a cross has been burned during the night on Wechsler's lawn and a painted KKK blobbed across one wall of his home.
  1957 October 7, “War of Nerves”, in Time
2. (transitive) To drop a blob or blobs onto; to cover with blobs.
  Quotations
  She was beating something in a pail, beating it with her hands; her arms were blobbed with pink froth to the elbows.
  1941, Emily Carr, chapter 20, in Klee Wyck‎
  Asked to do a mural in the coffee room of the Municipal Museum, Appel responded by blobbing all four walls and the ceiling with brilliant colors […]
  1959 December 7, “The Big Appel”, in Time‎, archived from the original on 27 August 2013
3. (intransitive) To fall in the form of a blob or blobs.
  Quotations
  Caroline began to separate eggs, cracking them into unbelievably even halves, sliding the gold, round and elastic, from shell to shell, whilst the white hung, heavy, translucent, in thick sheets, and blobbed suddenly into her basin.
  1964, A. S. Byatt, chapter 3, in The Shadow of the Sun, Harcourt, Brace & Co., published 1991, page 47
  […] whether the blood has splashed, or blobbed, or trickled, can reveal whether the victim was killed here or moved afterwards.
  2013, Marcus Berkmann, "Blood and gore of the real 'who dunnits'," Review of Silent Witnesses by Nigel McCrery, Daily Mail, 22 August, 2013
4. (intransitive, slang) To relax idly and mindlessly; to veg out.
5. (intransitive) To catch eels by means of worms strung on a thread.
  Quotations
  […] where he had surreptitiously tickled small trout, or openly "blobbed" for eels with worms threaded on to darning wool when the rains came, […]
  1937, The Argosy, volume 21, numbers 129-133, page 21

blob²

/blɒb/

noun
plural blobs
1. (databases) Alternative spelling of BLOB