Fubsy

The Oxford English Dictionary defines fubsy as meaning "fat and squat, from late 18th century: from dialect fubs 'small fat person', perhaps a blend of fat and chub," but Dick Eney implies a more attractive fannish meaning: "plump, pleasant and slightly pedomorphic."

In I Will Fear No Evil, Robert A. Heinlein refers to "a round, fubsy box." This perhaps means only that both of them had a taste for obscure vocabulary and the word was never fanspeak at all, but we thought you'd like to know what it means, anyway.

From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959

And looking at the result a generation later makes me uncomfortably aware of the changes that took place since 1959. I can laugh at my comment to our remote posterity, "For our readers in the year 2000..." But who'd have thought that describing Kabu's females as "fubsy" [plump, pleasant and slightly pedomorphic] would have become offensive for people who saw the word as related to "fubba-wubba" [fat, sloppy and cranky]?

---

Fanspeak

This is a fanspeak page. Please extend it by adding information about when and by whom it was coined, whether it’s still in use, etc.