Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1971 (SND Vol. VIII).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

†SAB, v.³, n.³ Also sob.

I. v., tr. and intr. To (cause to) subside or sink, to sag; of flowers: to droop, become limp.Ayr. 18th c. D. M'Naught Kilmaurs (1912) 168:
He went up upon the rigging and sabbed the house.Rxb. 1808 A. Scott Poems 90:
Nae mair he [sun] early gilds the morn, (Now a' the flowrets sab).Lth. 1825 Jam.:
“How comes it that this dore does na shut sae close as it used to do?” “It is because that part of the floor has sabbit a wee”. Metaphorically applied to the elastic motion of a wooden floor, occasioned by the fall of a heavy body, or by the starting of any of the joists.

II. n. 1. What has subsided, sunken rock or mineral, a subsidence.m.Lth. 1745 Bryan Pit Acct. Bk. MS. 69:
By James Kellie 6 days taking up sob in East Levell . . . 4s.

2. A stout heavily built person.Dmf. 1826 A. Cunningham Paul Jones III. ix.:
Some able-bodied sodger, a weighty sab of a man.