English

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Noun

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abbey-lubber (plural abbey-lubbers)

  1. (obsolete, historical, derogatory) An able-bodied idler who grew sleek and fat from the charity of religious houses; a lazy monk.[1]
    • 1681, John Dryden, The Spanish Fryar, III-iii:
      This is no huge overgrown abbey-lubber.

References

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  1. ^ Lesley Brown, editor-in-chief, William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, editors (2002), “abbey-lubber”, in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 5th edition, Oxford, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 3.