Definition of "cub"

a Childe of Lacedemon suffered all his belly and gutts to be torne out by a Cubbe or young Foxe, which he had stolne, and kept close under his garment, rather then he would discover his theft.

1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 32, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […]

O, thou dissembling cub! what wilt thou be / When time hath sowed a grizzle on thy case?

c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene i]

[...] I would rather have such a good mother in cub or kennel, than in my closet, or at my table.

1824, Walter Savage Landor, “Conversation XIII. Peter Leopold and President Du Paty.”, in Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen, volume I, London: […] Taylor and Hessey, […], page 193

Swain has interviewed 67 reporters on 16 metropolitan dailies in 10 cities — from cubs to veterans — who talk candidly […]

1978, The Journalism Quarterly, volume 55, page 652

[…] from competing publications and the editors of publications that might buy freelance material from cubs.

2018, Randall S. Sumpter, Before Journalism Schools

He knew that, only a few hours from London, the Hunt was cubbing over his ancestral and much-mortgaged acres, while his own horse ate its head off in a stable.

1943, Stuart Palmer, The Puzzle of the Silver Persian

to fall from heaven to hell, to be cubbed up upon a sudden

1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps