Brewer's: Loblolly Boy

(A.) A surgeon's mate in the navy. Here lob is the Welsh llob, a dolt, and loblolly boy is a dolt not yet out of his spoon-meat or baby-pap.

“Loblolly-boy is a person on board a man-of-war who attends the surgeon and his mates, but knows as much about the business of seaman as the author of this poem.” —The Patent (1776).

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