cub

1. 1.

   an awkward and inexperienced youth

   Synonymsgreenhornrookie

   Broadernovice
2. 2.

   a male child (a familiar term of address to a boy)

   Synonymsladladdiesonnysonny boy

   Broadermale child
3. 3.

   the young of certain carnivorous mammals such as the bear or wolf or lion

   Synonymsyoung carnivore

   Broaderyoung mammal

   Narrowerlion cubbear cubtiger cub

1. 1.

   give birth to cubs

   “bears cub every year”

   Broadergive birth

Other forms of cub

plural

cubs·

past tense or participle

cubbed

present participle

cubbing

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about cub

What does cub mean?

cub means "an awkward and inexperienced youth". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in cub?

cub has 1 syllable: cub. In IPA it is /ˈkʌb/.

What is another word for cub?

Close synonyms include greenhorn, rookie, lad, laddie, sonny. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is cub a common word?

cub is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.