sobby

English

Etymology

From sob +‎ -y.

Adjective

sobby (comparative sobbier, superlative sobbiest)

1. Very sad; inclined to sob (weep with convulsive gasps).
   • 1903, George Horace Lorimer, Old Gorgon Graham‎^[1]:

     It began, 'Where is my wandering boy to-night?' and by the time she was through I was feeling so mushy and sobby that I put a five instead of a one into the plate by mistake.

   • 1917, Sewell Ford, Wilt Thou Torchy‎^[2]:

     Every piece of furniture, from the threadbare sofa to the rickety center table, seems kind of sad and sobby.

2. Resembling or characteristic of a sob.

   a sobby sound

3. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) That has been sobbed (soaked); dripping wet.
   • 1882, Carlton McCarthy, Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865‎^[3]:

     Nobody knows who he was; but no matter how wet the leaves, how sobby the twigs, no matter if there was no fire in a mile of the camp, that fellow could start one.

   • 1887, Thomas Nelson Page, “No Haid Pawn”, in In Ole Virginia; Or, Marse Chan and Other Stories, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, pages 180–181:

     The original building of the house, and its blood-stained foundation stones; the dead who had died of the pestilence that had raged afterward; the bodies carted by scores and buried in the sobby earth of the graveyard, whose trees loomed up through the broken window; […]

   • 1902, Ellen Glasgow, The Battle Ground‎^[4]:

     The woman served him sullenly, placing some sobby biscuits and a piece of cold bacon on his plate, and pouring out a glass of buttermilk with a vicious thrust of the pitcher.

References

• “sobby, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

Anagrams

• B-boys, b-boys