sobby meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

sobby

adj

/ˈsɒbi/

Etymology From sob (“cry”) + -y.

Very sad; inclined to sob (weep with convulsive gasps).

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.1903, George Horace Lorimer, Old Gorgon Graham:
Every piece of furniture, from the threadbare sofa to the rickety center table, seems kind of sad and sobby.1917, Sewell Ford, Wilt Thou Torchy:

Resembling or characteristic of a sob.

adj

Etymology From sob (“soak”) + -y.

Archaic That has been sobbed (soaked); saturated with moisture.

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.1882, Carlton McCarthy, Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865:
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; […]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:

1 more example

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.1902, Ellen Glasgow, The Battle Ground: