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Glite Dictionary
to clabber up

to clabber up

9.9
To become thick and lumpy, like milk that goes sour
  • phrasal verb
  • /ˈklæbər ʌp/
  • Archaic
translation icon : cuajar
  • If you leave fresh milk out in the heat, it will clabber up overnight.

Examples

  • Don't let the milk clabber up in the fridge!

  • The recipe called for the cream to clabber up before being churned into butter.

  • She forgot about the jug, and it started to clabber up on the windowsill.

  • If left out too long, the cream will clabber up.

  • If you leave fresh milk out in the heat, it will clabber up overnight.

  • She forgot about the jug, and it started to clabber up on the windowsill.

  • If left out too long, the cream will clabber up into a thick consistency.

Synonyms

to curdle
vsto clabber up
13 4.1

To become thick and form small lumps, like milk when it turns sour

focuses on souring as the cause rather than heat or acid
to clot
vsto clabber up
8 5.6

To become thick and form lumps in a liquid, for example blood or milk

describes souring into a curd rather than generic lump formation
to clabber
vsto clabber up
  • Archaic
1 9.9

To become thick and a little sour like milk left out

is identical but appears as a verb phrase with an added particle

Antonyms

to stay fresh
4 2.1

Remain in good condition and not go bad

How Curdled

to clabber up
  • Archaic
9.9
to curdle
13 4.1
sour
50 1.0
to thicken
35 2.3

Surface Forms

clabber up infinitive
clabbered up past
clabbered up past participle
clabbering up present participle
clabbers up third person singular

Morphology

clabber + up

The verb 'clabber' already denotes milk curdling/thickening and the particle 'up' commonly adds a resultative/completive sense in English, so a learner who knows both constituents can infer ‘to curdle/thicken (completely)’. The construction follows a regular verb + up pattern found cross-linguistically, making the meaning compositionally predictable rather than idiomatic.

Etymology

Clabber up comes from farm life: when milk is left warm it turns thick and lumpy and this is called clabber. With up, the picture is of the milk becoming fully thick, so the phrase means 'to sour' or 'to curdle'.