Definition of "dob"

Students often claimed that an act of informing was just ‘dobbing as a joke’ and therefore ‘not really dobbing’.

1983, James Macpherson, The Feral Classroom, page 107

The deceased “dobbed” him in about drugs to police on two occasions. This resulted in police seizing some of his drugs. She “dobbed” him in because he would not give her amphetamines. He may have told people that she “dobbed” him in.

1998, Supreme Court of Victoria, Council of Law Reporting in Victoria, Victorian Reports, Volume 4, page 372

Alex was concerned that if others thought he had dobbed, things would get even worse for him. Dobbing was the worst thing a student could do.

2006, Ian Findley, Shared Responsibility: Beating Bullying in Australian Schools, page 67

He′d never take payment in cash for tracking, but when they dobbed in for presentations such as the fridge he accepted them shyly, abashedly, […] .

1968, Louise Elizabeth Rorabacher, Aliens in Their Land: The Aborigine in the Australian Short Story, page 80

The miners had all dobbed in to buy a few bottles of beer which they left in the creek overnight to cool.

1976, Margaret Paice, Colour in the Creek, page 53

Writing reviews reminds me of the time I got dobbed in to be the judge at the Poochera sheep dog trials. It′s easy they said, sinking beers in the shade of the lean-to, just watch the dog.

1977, University of British Columbia, Canadian Literature, Issues 74-77, page 108

Those who moved into organisational roles sometimes did it unwittingly, even unwillingly, as they were ‘dobbed’ in for tasks, succeeded and so it went on.

2001, Kerreen M. Reiger, Sheila Kitzinger, Our Bodies, Our Babies: The Forgotten Women's Movement, page 153

Parents were taken to court 189 times in the Western region over the past five years because their children were ‘dobbing’ school.¶ The Education Minister John O’Dowd revealed the number of parents taken to court due to children being absent from school […]

2015 October 11, Kevin Mullan, “189 parents in dock for ‘dobbing’”, in Londonderry Sentinel‎

‘Consequence will be, O Tegumai,’ said the Head Chief, ‘that we will make them understand it with sticks and stinging-nettles and dobs of mud; and if that doesn't teach them, we'll draw fine, freehand Tribal patterns on their backs with the cutty edges of mussel-shells. […] ’

1903, Rudyard Kipling, The Tabu Tale, in Just So Stories (in the U.S. Scribner edition, but omitted from most British editions)

I used to get through the dibbing and dobbing all right but during the howling I usually rolled over backwards.

2009, Clive James, Unreliable Memoirs, page 54

Why were there 212 fatalities at the first boy scout camp? There wasn't much dybbing and dobbing at Robert Baden-Powell's first scout camp as the camp in question was in Mafeking and took place during a particularly nasty siege […]

2009, Justin Pollard, The Interesting Bits