goober

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English

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English Wikipedia has an article on:
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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Via Gullah from Kongo nguba (peanut).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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goober (plural goobers)

  1. (chiefly Southern US) A peanut.
    • 1833 November 7, Louisville Public Advertiser:
      A few bags Gouber Pea, or Ground Pea
    • 1834 May 24, Cherokee Phoenix, page 3:
      But he so seam I frade of he, I guess he steal my goober.
  2. (chiefly Southern US, dated slang) A Georgian or North Carolinian, particularly one from the pine forests of the Sandhills region.
    • 1863, anonymous author, “Castle Thunder”, in Louis Napoléon Boudrye, editor, Historic Records of the Fifth New York Cavalry...[1], Appendix, page 339:
      Conscripts by the dozen...
      Come pouring in the Castle...
      Some from Mississippi state and “Goobers” from Tar river.
    • 1871, Maximilian Schele de Vere, Americanisms, page 57:
      The peanuts or earth-nuts known in North Carolina and the adjoining States as Goober peas, so that during the late Civil War a conscript from the so-called ‘piney woods’ of that State was apt to be nick-named a Goober.
  3. (chiefly US, childish slang) A foolish, simple, or amusingly silly person.
    • 2012 August 5, Nathan Rabin, “The Simpsons (Classic): 'I Love Lisa'”, in A.V. Club[2]:
      For Ralph, any encouragement is too much. When Lisa gives Ralph a valentine bearing that locomotive pun that so affected The Simpsons’ showrunner, Ralph misinterprets the gesture as a genuine display of romantic interest rather than a gesture of pity from a thoughtful young geek to a friendless goober.

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Verb

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goober (third-person singular simple present goobers, present participle goobering, simple past and past participle goobered)

  1. (slang, intransitive) To drool or dribble.
  2. (slang, transitive) To drip or slather; to apply a gooey substance to a surface.

References

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Anagrams

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