frob
noun, verb
frob is a noun meaning “Any small device or object (usually hand-sized) which can be manipulated” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-R-O-B, and it appears about once in every 72 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of frob is frobs.
What does frob mean?
noun
- 1
slangAny small device or object (usually hand-sized) which can be manipulated.
Hand me that frob there, will you?
verb
- 1
rareslangTo manipulate in some ill-defined way; to tweak or mess about with.
- 2
slangTo perform a task that is clear to the speaker but too complex or tedious to be explained, so that outside help is not helpful.
Why don't you go get lunch? I need to frob with this thing for about 30 minutes and then we'll be good to go.
- 3
To transform and obscure in a trivial fashion with memfrob(3).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of frob
- frobs plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- frobbing participle, present
- frobbed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is frob?
Frob appears about once in every 72 million words in written English, the 269,040th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does frob come from?
Clipping of frobnicate, from frobnitz, coined circa 1958 by David R. Sawyer of the MIT Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC). Year of origin uncertain, and could be 1958–1981: frob is not listed in the TMRC dictionaries of 1959 or 1960, and is first listed in the Jargon File (1981 edition), so it may date from the 1960s or 1970s. Possibly variant of or influenced by frotsus (“a protruding arm or trunnion”), which is listed in TMRC 1959 and 1960.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).