oobit

English

Alternative forms

• oubit, woobut, woubit

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

oobit (plural oobits)

1. (obsolete, Northern England) A caterpillar.
   • 1887, Hardwicke's Science-gossip, page 169:

     Of course, I need scarcely say that the existence of dealers who purvey to the wants of aspiring naturalists, was entirely unknown to me ; and even if I had known, the probability is that my parents would have thought twice before they granted me money in order to purchase accommodation for such vermin as hairy oobits, as the majority of caterpillars were, and are still, indiscriminately termed by the good north-country people.

   • 1922, Marmaduke Charles Frederick Morris, Yorkshire Reminiscences (with Others), page 160:

     I can use some of the children to pick off gooseberry "oobits", and do good in two ways, and if the boys learn to fight wasp nests, they will have got a good way towards fighting Boers. But then comes the difficulty of time tables.

   • 1966, Otta F. Swire, The Outer Hebrides and Their Legends, page 100:

     I wonder whether this could be a fact; hairy oobits do sting, rather like nettles, if angered. As a child I collected thirty-five once in my hands and they fought, leaving my hands, their battlefield, covered with a rash like measles which lasted for some days.

   • 1971, The Scots Magazine, volume 96:

     Another disappearance is the "hairy oobit" — how does one spell it? I've not seen one for a very long time. What kind of a moth or butterfly emerges?

Anagrams

• tio bo