cub
noun · verb
Simple meaning
The young of certain carnivorous mammals such as the bear or wolf or lion.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kuhbIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkʌb
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The young of certain carnivorous mammals such as the bear or wolf or lion
A member of the Cub Scouts.
baseball
A player on the team the "Chicago Cubs".
A person who is unsophisticated or of a lower class background but achieving a high salary, who spends money on flashy or trashy items to fulfil their aspirations of higher social status. The stereotype includes having speech and mannerisms that are considered to denote poor education and uncultured upbringing, which is reflected in their bad taste possessions and lifestyles.
verb
To give birth to cubs.
To hunt fox cubs.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The young of certain carnivorous mammals such as the bear or wolf or lion
Used this way, cub is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A most common shark in temperate and tropical coastal waters worldwide.
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.