1693, Thomas Urquhart, translation of by , Chapter XX:Ponocrates and Eudemon burst out in a laughing so heartily, that they had almost split with it, and given up the ghost, in rendering their souls to God: even just as Crassus did, seeing a lubberly ass eat thistles;
Lacking in seamanship; of or suitable to a landlubber who is new to being at sea and unfamiliar with the ways of a sailor.
1848, James Fenimore Cooper, "Captain Spike, Or The Islets of the Gulf", in Bentley's Miscellanyhttp://books.google.com/books?id=79zu_mUqPYgC, page 19:"Do not use such a lubberly expression, my dear Rose, if you respect your father's profession. On a vessel is a new-fangled Americanism, that is neither fish, flesh, nor red-herring, as we sailors say,— neither English nor Greek."
1839, Matthew Henry Barker, Hamilton Kinghttp://books.google.com/books?id=X3wEAAAAQAAJ, page 105:I'm not ignorant of these matters, having been many years at sea—and seamen, you must know, are curious in knots; I cannot endure to see anything done lubberly.
