Obsolete British cant (criminal slang) for a jailer or turnkey — someone who held the keys (the 'dubs') to a prison. The term dates from at least the 17th or 18th century and appears in slang dictionaries of the era. 'Dub' was thieves' cant for a key, making a dubsman the key-holder.
The dubsman pocketed the bribe without looking up, then unlocked the cell without a word.
No comments yet — say something.
(obsolete, slang) A jailer.
No comments yet — say something.
Add your own interpretation of "dubsman".
The vocabulary of software engineers, AI researchers, and anyone living in a terminal or on GitHub — from LLM to MCP, CORS to vibe coding, agentic to enshittification.
See all Tech, Dev & AI slang on Slangora.