1692. L’Estrange, Fables. Down comes a kite powdering upon them, and gobbets up both together.
2. (common).—To expectorate. Fr., glavioter (popular); molarder.
Gobbie, subs. (nautical).—A coastguardsman; whence gobbie-ship, a man of war engaged in the preventive service.
1890. Scotsman, 4 Aug. When a meeting takes place the men indulge in a protracted yarn and a draw of the pipe. The session involves a considerable amount of expectoration all round, whereby our friends come to be known as gobbies, and in process of time the term came to be applied to the ships engaged in the service. Ibid. There are no fewer than three other gobbie ships in the channel fleet, each of which carries a considerable number of coastguardsmen putting in their annual period of drill.
Gobble (or Gobble up), verb. (vulgar).—To swallow hastily or greedily; hence (American) to seize, capture, or appropriate. Also gob: e.g., gob that!
1602. Dekker, Satiro-mastix, in wks. (1873) i. 233. They will come to gobble downe Plummes.
1728. Swift, Misc. Poems, in wks. (1824) xiv. 232. The time too precious now to waste, The supper gobbled up in haste.
1751. Smollett, Peregrine Pickle, ch. cvi. Summoned in such a plaguy hurry from his dinner, which he had been fain to gobble up like a cannibal.
1846–48. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, vol. 1, ch. v. Mr. Jos. … helped Rebecca to everything on the table, and himself gobbled and drank a great deal.
1860. Thackeray, Philip, ch. xiii. There was a wily old monkey who thrust the cat’s paw out, and proposed to gobble up the smoking prize.