clabber

English

Alternative forms

• clauber

Etymology

Shortening of bonny clabber, from Irish bainne clábar (“mud, thick milk for churning”) or a Scots Gaelic cognate thereof; the latter is probably related to láib (“dirt, mud, filth”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈklæb.ə(ɹ)/

  Rhymes: -æbə(ɹ)

Noun

clabber (uncountable)

1. Sour or curdled milk.
   • 1997, Charles Frazier, chapter 2, in Cold Mountain, London: Hodder and Stoughton, page 25:

     Even butter had proved beyond her means, for the milk she had tried to churn had never firmed up beyond the consistency of runny clabber.

1. Wet clay or mud.

Related terms

• bonnyclabber

Translations

curdled milk — see sour milk

Verb

clabber (third-person singular simple present clabbers, present participle clabbering, simple past and past participle clabbered)

1. To sour or curdle.
   • 2013, Philipp Meyer, The Son, Simon & Schuster, published 2014, page 148:

     They always had more milk than they needed and often entire buckets would clabber and one of her brothers would carry it out to the bunkhouse for the vaqueros.

Anagrams

• cabbler, crabble