clabber
English
editAlternative forms
editEtymology
editShortening 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
editNoun
editclabber (uncountable)
- 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.
Related terms
editTranslations
editcurdled milk — see sour milk
Verb
editclabber (third-person singular simple present clabbers, present participle clabbering, simple past and past participle clabbered)
- 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.