Other forms: sobbing, sobs, sobbed
To sob is to cry so hard that the breath keeps catching. Shoulders going, a gulp between one breath and the next, the noise a child makes a few seconds after a bad fall.
There is a noun for each catch of breath — a sob escaped her, great heaving sobs from the back of the church. It sits at the loud end of a scale: weep is quiet, cry is the ordinary word, sob is the one that shakes you. You can also sob words out, saying them through the crying. A sob story is a tale told to make you feel sorry enough to hand over money, an extension or a lift home, and calling it that means you do not believe a word of it. Spelling: the b doubles, so sobbed and sobbing.
1verbsobTo cry noisily, drawing sudden sharp breaths.
“She sobbed into a tea towel until there was nothing left.”
synonyms: weep
2nouncatchingOne of the catching breaths made while crying like this.
“A single sob got out before he got hold of himself.”
3verbcryingTo say something while crying.
“He sobbed out the whole story on the kitchen floor.”
sob is a way of crying.
Also accepted in games: weep
Sob has no clean pedigree. Middle English sobben may come from Middle Low German sabben, to drool or slobber — a family of wet, mouthy words that also gives Dutch sabbelen, to suck, and German sabbern, to drool. If that is the route, the word was named for the mess of crying rather than the sound of it.
Middle Low German
sabben — to drool, slobber, salivate
Middle English
sobben
English, today
sob
From Middle English sobben, perhaps from Middle Low German sabben (“to drool, slobber, salivate”). Cognate with West Frisian sabje, sobje (“to suck”), Dutch zabben, sabbelen (“to suck”), zabberen (“to drool”), German Low German sabbeln, severn (“to drool”), German sabbern (“to drool, slobber”), Norwegian sabbe (“to spill, drop, make a mess”). Compare also Old English sēofian (“to lament”), German saufen (“to drink, swig”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA