cob

Etymology 1

Of uncertain origin. The word has many disparate senses, which are likely of diverse origin. The specifics of these origins have long been debated, as has the question of which senses arise from which origins. At least the swan sense originated in Middle English cobbe (“male swan; gang leader; bully”). Some other senses likely originated as a variant of cop (“head, top, peak, summit”). In other senses, the word may be related to cub, itself of obscure origin but possibly from Old Norse kobbi (“seal”). However, many alternative etymologies have been proposed to account for some or all senses of cob; various sources have related it, for example, to English cot (“cottage”), Welsh cob (“top, tuft”), or German Kübel (“large container”). All these etymologies are disputed, and the exact origins of cob cannot be known with any certainty.

noun

1. A corncob.
   The grains, each of which is about the bulk of the largest marrowfat pea, are placed all round a stalk, which goes up the middle, and this little stalk, to which the seeds adhere, is called the Corn Cob. 1818, William Cobbett, A Year’s Residence in the United States of America, part I, Clayton and Kingsland, page 18
   I passed some mills in which the grain, cob, and husk were all ground up together for the cattle and hogs…. 1849, Charles Lyell, A Second Visit to the United States of North America, volume II, Harper & Brothers, page 64
   Dad had placed a cob of corn on a stump for the jays, who bickered over it non-stop. 1994, Douglas Coupland, Life After God, Washington Square Press,, page 80
2. The seed-bearing head of a plant.
   Examining the cob of the plants now in seed, I found them very full of fine seed. 1807, General View of the Agriculture of the County of Essex, page 14
   The following analyses exhibit the composition of the ash of the grain and cob of three specimens, grown on different soils, in Lewis county, in 1847 1849, New York (State). Legislature. Assembly, Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York, page 742
   About the end of October last, as an experiment, I selected seed from a Hickory King cob of above and planted twenty rows with from twenty to thirty seeds in each row, rows three feet apart. 1909, Cape of Good Hope (Colony). Dept. of Agriculture, Agricultural Journal of the Cape of Good Hope - Volume 35, page 108
   One of the branches developed into a fully-formed cob, though it was thinner than the normal cob of the variety. 1931, Indian Botanical Society, The Journal of the Indian Botanical Society, page 22
3. Clipping of cobnut.
   Thy plumbs are fair indeed, but void of taste; And those large thick-shell cobs the teeth will guast. 1782, John Nichols, A select collection of poems, page 123
   This kind of husk also protects the nut from birds, for titmice (Parus) have been observed to pass over filberts, and attack cobs and common nuts growing in the same orchard. 1868, Charles Darwin, The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, volume I, John Murray, page 357
   Pickled walnuts are excellent if you can get hold of green walnuts, but other green nuts – hazel, cob, filbert – can be used instead. 1979, Jocasta Innes, The Country Kitchen, Frances Lincoln Limited, published 2003, page 257
   The nuts of the filbert are slightly longer and narrower than the cob. 2009, Carleen Madigan, editor, The Essential Guide to Back Garden Self-Sufficiency, Timber Press, published 2010, page 145
4. A male swan.
   In all common streams, and private waters, when cygnets are taken up, the owner of the cob must chuse the first cygnet, and the pen the next, and so in order…. 1664, John Witherings, “The Orders, Laws, and Ancient Customs of Swans”, in The Harleian Miscellany, volume VII, published 1810, page 292
   The cob waddled out onto the island and looked in the nest. 1970, E. B. White, The Trumpet of the Swan, HarperCollins, published 2000, page 22
   The cob will defend the nest and the eggs. 2008, Nicole Helget, Swans, Creative Education,, page 22
5. (East Anglia) A gull, especially the black-backed gull (Larus marinus); also spelled cobb.
   Here is also the pica marina or seapye many sorts of Lari, seamewes & cobs. 1668, Thomas Browne, "Notes on Certain Birds Found in Norfolk", in Notes and Letters on the Natural History of Norfolk, Jarrold & Sons (1902), pages 8–9
   On Saturday the 28th we saw a whale, two sea-wolves, and two penguins; in the afternoon there appeared great numbers of ospreys, and sea-cobs, and we met with some sea-grass, with long leaves. 1773, Antoine-Joseph Pernety, The History of a Voyage to the Malouine (or Falkland), page 178
   We found here a species of cob, with a grey head, red beak and feet, very much resembling our larus ribibundus…. 1820, Sir Richard Phillips and Co. (tr.), Travels in Brazil (in New Voyages and Travels, volume III), translation of Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied, Reise nach Brasilien (1817), page 21
   The Raven has a very ancient look about him, as if he could tell a lot if he thought proper, but the Cob looks weird and uncanny, as if he was continually thinking over the creatures that he had seen go down to Davy’s locker. 1895, A Son of the Marshes [Denham Jordan], The Wild-Fowl and Sea-Fowl of Great Britain, Chapman and Hall, page 312
6. A lump or piece of anything, usually of a somewhat large size, as of coal, or stone.
7. (Midlands) A round, often crusty roll or loaf of bread.
   The cob was a cracknel or simnel made of fine flour. 1877, Mackenzie E. C. Walcott, The Early Statutes of the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, Chichester, J. B. Nichols and Sons, page 38
   …I sat there and broke the crust of my cob of bread. 1958, Brendan Behan, Borstal Boy, Nonpareil, published 1982, page 86
   I want to do a manual job / Even bake a lovely bread cob 2005, Sheila Dunwell, “Progress or Less”, in Poetry—Love It, Hate It, Read It and See, AuthorHouse, page 85
8. (uncountable) A building material consisting of clay, sand, straw, water, and earth, similar to adobe; also called cobb, rammed earth or pisé.
   The poore Cotager contenteth himſelfe with Cob for his wals, and Thatch for his couering…. 1602, Richard Carew, The Svrvey of Cornwall, new edition (1769), page 53
   The walls are of cob, the external ones being about 2 feet 8 inches thick, and rest on a stone foundation. 1889, T. N. Brushfield, "The Birthplace of Sir Walter Raleigh", in Reports and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, and Art, volume XXI, W. Brendon & Son, page 323
   …cob falls outside the building code, so planners would want documentation of how the adobelike material performs. October 6 2007, Cecelia Goodnow, “Thinking of Building a Cob Home?”, in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, page E8
   Some tests have been carried out to evaluate the stabilizing effect on cob of modern materials such as gypsum, lime and cement (McPadden & Pavia 2016). 2018, Ine Wouters, Stephanie van de Voorde, Inge Bertels, Building Knowledge, Constructing Histories, volume 2, page 790
9. A horse having a stout body and short legs.
   If he comes to you riding a cob… 1828, Winthrop Mackworth Praed, "A Letter of Advice", in The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, volume 23, part II, S. and H. Bentley, page 543
   He was well-mounted upon a sturdy chestnut cob, and had the graceful seat of an experienced horseman…. 1841, Charles Dickens, “Barnaby Rudge”, in Master Humphrey’s Clock, volume II, Chapman and Hall, page 289
   Freize rode a strong cob and led a donkey laden with their belongings. 2012, Philippa Gregory, Changeling, Simon Pulse,, page 36
10. Any of the gold and silver coins that were minted in the Spanish Empire and valued in reales or escudos, such as the piece of eight—especially those which were crudely struck and irregularly shaped.
    …he put his Hand in his Pocket and pull’d out ſome Gold, ſome Broadpieces and a Gold Cob…. 1701, Daniel Mac-Cay, testimony in the trial of Patrick Hurly, transcribed in A Complete Collection of State-Trials, and Proceedings upon High-Treason, and Other Crimes and Misdemeanours, volume 5, 2nd edition (1730), page 404
    They fancied, that he who sold a Stone of Wool for Two Cobs, callid 9s. when Cobs were raised would sell his Stone for a Cob and a half when called 9s. 1718, Observations on raising the value of money, page 4
    As this sum was greater than ever Swift had been master of at any one time before, he pushed over, without reckoning them, a good number of the siver cobs (for it was all in that specie) to the honest sailor, and desired he would accept them for his trouble. 1774, J. Hawkesworth, “An Account of the life of Dr. Swift”, in The Works of Jonathan Swift, page xx
    He then drew out a large leathern bag, and poured out the contents, which were ſilver cobs, upon the table. 1784, Thomas Sheridan, The Life of the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick’s, Dublin, volume I, pages 7–8
    Our fituation every day appears more alarming, there being a scarcity of almost every thing in the garrison — fire-wood a cob per hundred; flour five rials per pound; no fresh meat except an old cow, or worn-out ox, (only one perhaps killed in a month) which is sold at four and a half and five rials per pound; fowls twenty to twenty-four rials each; a goose ten dollars; a turkey twenty dollars; eggs a cob the dozen; and every other necessary in proporition. 1793, Samuel Ancell, A circumstantial journal of the blockade and siege of Gibraltar, page 24
    Several of the artillery officers, the Welch fusileers, and a few navy officers, spent the evening at a tavern, well known by the name of Miss Loftus's; on payment of our reckoning, Captain Wilcox was deficient a cob (value about four shillings and ninepence) the payment of which, was offered to him by a Mr. Funston, a lieutenant fireworker; 1795, Mark Moore, The Memoirs and Adventures of Mark Moore Late an Officer in the British Navy, page 49
    It’s absolutely possible to find an affordable ($20-$35) low to average circulated Spanish silver cob dated around or before 1692, especially if you’re willing to settle for the smaller half real or one real cobs. 2006, Todd Cook, The Lost Coins of Early Americans: Still A Secret!, Xulon Press,, page 90
    Cobs were usually irregularly shaped. They were a means to account for a specific amount of silver in a coin that could be used for commerce. 2008, Alvin Rabushka, Taxation in Colonial America, Princeton University Press,, page 154
11. (obsolete) One who is eminent, great, large, or rich.
    I ſaw fleſh bluddie toe ſlauer, / When the cob had maunged the gobets foule garbaged haulfe quick. 1583, Richard Stanyhurst (tr.), The First Fovre Bookes of Virgils Æneis, Henrie Bynneman, page 86
    But I would not haue a few rich cobs to get into their clowches almoſt whole countries, ſo as the poore can haue no releefe by them. 1583, Phillip Stubbes, The Second Part of the Anatomie of Abuses, N. Trübner & Co. (1882), page 27
    There comes no good of greedie Cobs: 1602, Tudor Facsimile Texts
    For fishing and shuting, he was the cob of all this country! 1827, anonymous angler quoted in William Hone, The Every-Day Book, volume II, part II, Hunt and Clarke, page 769
12. A spider (cf. cobweb).
13. A small fish, the miller's thumb.
14. A large fish, especially the kabeljou (variant spelling of kob).
15. (obsolete) The head of a herring.
    The first red herring that was broil’d in Adam and Eve’s kitchen, do I fetch my pedigree from, by the Harrot’s book. His Cob was my great-great-mighty-great grandfather. 1598, Ben Jonson, Every Man in His Humour, in The Modern British Drama, 3rd volume, James Ballantyne and Co. (1811), page 5
    …not a Scrap of him, but the Cobs of the two Herrings, the Fiſhermen had eaten, remained of him…. 1599, Thomas Nashe, “Lenten Stuffe”, in The Harleian Miscellany, volume VI, published 1745, page 156
    …he can come bragging hither with foure white Herrings (at’s taile) in blue Coates without roes in their bellies, but I may ſtarue ere he giue me ſo much as a cob. 1605, Thomas Dekker, The Honest Whore, in The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, 2nd volume, John Pearson (1873), page 147
16. (obsolete) A tower or small castle on top of a hill.
    Perhaps though in time one may make them to yield, But 'tis pretty'st Cob-Castle e'er I beheld. 1689, Charles Cotton, Poems on Several Occasions, page 197
    There is a small cob on this hill by some supposed to have been a fort: if it was, it must have been a very small one; tho' I rather take it for a tumulus than an exploratory tower. 1768, Philosophical Transactions: Giving Some Account of the Present Undertakings, Studies, and Labours, of the Ingenious in Many Considerable Parts of the World., page 114
17. (obsolete) A thresher.
    Who can make the worm a cob to thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and make the hills as chaff. 1667, John Wilkins, A Discourse concerning the Gift of Prayer, etc, page 59
18. (music, historical) A cylinder with pins in it, encoding music to be played back mechanically by a barrel organ.
19. (dated or historical) A person of mixed black and white ancestry, especially a griffe; a mulatto.
    […] but he does not say whether the nobleman is a mulatto or half-caste, or what advantage is to be derived from purchasing a cob belonging to "a dark-brown nobleman." 1885, Stanley Harris, The Coaching Age, London: R. Bentley and son, page 237
    The young mother was darker than either of her parents, and might be taken for a cob (the offspring of a mulatto and a negro), but the baby looked to be almost pure Indian. 1902, Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, page 214
    A cob is a reversion towards the negro, the child of one black parent with a mulatto, three-quarters black and hardly distinguishable. The mustee or quadroon, who is three-fourths white, and the costee or octoroon may be considered[…] 1912, James Rodway, Guiana: British, Dutch, and French, page 190

verb

1. To construct using mud blocks or to seal a wall using mud or an artificial equivalent.
   Windows and other details can be cobbed into place, and niches and reliefs are easy to create. 2004, Joe Kennedy, Building Without Borders: Sustainable Construction for the Global Village, page 178
   The technique appeals to alternative builders because of its ability to be sculpted, its use of waste materials, and its pest resistant properties. Each course is tamped down, or "cobbed," to impart strength and to aid in curing. 2009, Marian Keeler, Bill Burke, Fundamentals of Integrated Design for Sustainable Building, page 304
   And there is another alternative: both papercrete and fidobe can be cobbed. 2011, Gordon Salberg, “Paper houses: papercrete and fidobe”, in The Art of Natural Building, page 174
2. (of growing corn) To have the heads mature into corncobs.
   Ninety Day came to maturity very early and cobbed plentifully, but the grain proved shallow and lacking in meal. 1907, Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales - Volume 17, page 731
   Corn was a bumper crop and cobbed much above average so that silage will be above average in feeding value. 1951, Monthly Crop & Live Stock Report - Volumes 368-416, page 14
   We were presently in the maize country. It looked beautiful. Miles of waving, dark green, tasselled corn just cobbing. 2019, C. W. Bryde, From Chart House to Bush Hut, page 64
3. To remove the kernels from a corncob.
   Darning socks, knitting, fancy work, cooking, housework, cobbing corn. 1969, Jim Henderson, Open Country Calling: People and Places Out of Town, page 82
   Here are some of the pople who made this yearbook easy to live with: […] David Littlejohn and Martin Munroe for their concessions, All the people who cobbed corn, Sara Perry for her steadfastness and warm smile in the coffee shop, […] 1976, Lisgar Collegiate Institute, Vox Lycei 1975-1976, page 21
   Besides, the joy of shelling fresh peas or cobbing the corn in the right season is a great feeling! 2017, Acharya Shunya, Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom
4. To thresh.
   The price paid for cobbing (separating the seed from the straw) and drawing the seed of red and white clover is from 3s. 6d. to 4s. 6d. the bushel of 5 stone of seed. 1847, British Farmer's Magazine - Issue 10, page 510
   In the new machine under notice, clover can be "cobbed" and "hulled" or "drawn," and the seed delivered in one operation, the whole being done at the stack side in the open air and in one-thired of the time previously occupied. 1897, The British Trade Journal - Volume 35, page 235
5. To break up ground with a hoe.
   I have in this manner cobbed, with great success, lands that had formerly been in tillage, which would no longer bring corn because they were exhausted, either by consecutive crops or by the great quantity of weeks, which impoverished them: these became as good as my regularly cobbed lands. 1762, Louis François Henri de Menon (Marquis de Turbilly.), A discourse on the cultivation of waste and barren lands, page 90

Etymology 2

Uncertain. Possibly onomatopoeic, but it has also been suggested that the word could be a continuation of Middle English cobbe (“fight”), a borrowing of Welsh cob (“blow”), or a cognate of Icelandic kubba (“chop”).

verb

1. To beat with a flat instrument; to paddle.
   […] he pulled off his hat, and said he was going to cob him for breaking the rules and laws of the ship’s company. 1803, Andrew Mitchell, "Extract from the Trial of the Mutineers on board the Bantry Bay Squadron", The Annual Register, volume XLIV, R. Wilks, page 556
   White prisoners, and sometimes black ones, are put into the dungeon, and ironed; and black prisoners have been “cobbed.” 1862, United States Senate, Senate Documents - Volume 172, page 19
   […] this jail keeper took a piece of board with holes bored through it (what you call a paddle) and cobbed him and cobbed him, and, then they took salt and washed him. 1863, Susan Boggs, interview transcribed in Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiographies, ed. John Wesley Blassingame, Louisiana State University Press (1977), page 419
   British officers cobbed infantrymen for petty offenses, and Irish schoolchildren were paddled for failing to remove their hats, becoming the first of many schoolchildren to be cobbed. 2007, Darius Rejali, Torture and Democracy, Princeton University Press,, page 272
   In the 1920s, French investigators cobbed every witness in piracy cases in Korea using instruments "rather like a canoe paddle or a thick cricket bat, on a part where he could not be ijured, but where the bruises would show up beautifully." 2009, Darius Rejali, Torture and Democracy, page 272
   Kell replied, 'I have, five of them, and some told me you was in liquor or I would have cobbed you.' 2020, John D. Byrn, Naval Courts Martial, 1793-1815
2. (Northern UK, colloquial) To throw, chuck, lob.
   Well, sir, I’m sure I’d be rid of it fast enough if I could naut cob it away like a stoan. 1862, Philip Gilbert Hamerton (quoting a Lancashire shepherd), A Painter’s Camp in the Highlands, volume I, Macmillan and Co., page 69
   Each had a stone in his grasp in an instant, and simultaneously they cobbed at Master Bunnie. 1878, Robert Richardson, "How the Fight was Stopped", in The Young Cragsman, And Other Stories, William Oliphant and Co., page 72
   Iv not, aw’ll cob mi fleawers i’ th’ fire, brun mi love wi ’em, turn mi back on thee once an’ for ever, an’ lev thee to get a betther husbant wi two white e’en, iv tha con find one. 1895, John Trafford Clegg, “James Leach”, in The Works of John Trafford Clegg, James Clegg, page 287
   Although, wait -- best avoid rocks. Terrorists are known to cob them at the democratic forces of law and order in the free world. 2004, Ross Howard, “Re: Fox News on Terrorism”, in alt.usage.english (Usenet)
3. To chip off unwanted pieces of stone, so as to form a desired shape or improve the quality of mineral ore.
   A ſhade or ſhelter from the weather, under which the Cobbers cob the Ore. 1778, William Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, James Phillips, page 327
   Pyrites with galena, gangue, and a little blende—separately cobbed, with other material of the same nature, by expert workers to minimize the quantity of dust, and then yielding: […] 1884, Wheaton Bradish Kunhardt, The Practice of Ore Dressing in Europe, page 20
   […] it is not less ridiculous for instance to place a man, who may be perhaps an adept at spalling stones, in charge of a mill at the salary of a first-class foreman, than it would be to put the latter to cob ore at the wage of a labourer. 1894, A. G. Charleton, "The Choice of Coarse and Fine-Crushing Machinery and Processes of Ore Treatment", part IV, in Transactions of the Federated Institution of Mining Engineers, volume VI (M. Walton Brown, ed.), Andrew Reid, Sons & Co., page 95
   These blocks are sledged by band, sorted and hand cobbed to remove impurities; but hand cobbing is slow and expensive. 1919, United States. Bureau of Mines, Report of Investigations, page 3
   The bulk of adhering rock is cobbed, and the mica is shipped to grinding plants 1948, Gerald A. Munson, Fremont F. Clarke, Studies on Methods for Recovering Scrap Mica from Pegmatite of the Black Hills, South Dakota, page 9
   1961, John Calvin Reed, “Geology of the Mount McKinley quadrangle, Alaska”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), →OCLC, page 13:
   The beryl is cobbed out by hand, since no method for successful beneficiation has been developed and applied. For this reason medium-grained granite is most adaptable, if it may be split and cobbed readily along rift and grain directions. 1968, National Research Council (U.S.). Materials Advisory Board. Committee on Technical Aspects of Critical and Strategic Materials, Trends in Usage of Beryllium and Beryllium Oxide, page 2
   It was not unusual for the older girls to stay on after 5 p.m. for another two hours or so, to buck or cob an extra one or two barrows. 2004, Lynne Mayers, Balmaidens, The Hypatia Trust,, page 28
   Capacity is also available for the export of an additional 1000 metric tons of cobbed beryl per year. 2009, Kenneth A. Walsh, Beryllium Chemistry and Processing, page 25
   A more likely explanation is that ancient crystal skull carvers first chipped (cobbed) piecees off a block of material that was destined to be shaped into a skull. 2011, Patricia Mercier, Crystal Skulls & the Enigma of Time, Appendix 2

noun

1. A punishment consisting of blows inflicted on the buttocks with a strap or a flat piece of wood.
   Such negro so offending shall receive fifteen cobbs or paddles for every such offence. October 28 1828/9?, J. Ross, Cherokee Laws

Etymology 3

noun

1. Abbreviation of cobble.
   Habitats were sand, cobble (cob), sand with macrophytes (s\m) and muck with macrophytes (m\m). 1994, Anna M. Hill, David M. Lodge, “Diel Changes in Resource Demand: Competition and Predation in Species Replacement among Crayfishes”, in Ecology, volume 75, page 2122
   List and short characteristics of sampling sites (br = bedrock, cob = cobble, gra = gravel, peb = pebble, sa = sand). 2002, Christian Vogt & Wolfhard Symader, "Evaluation of Small Rivers by Combining Biological Sampling with a Structure Analysis of River Beds", in Fiona J. Dyer, Martin C. Thomas, & Jon M. Olley (eds.), The Structure, Function and Management Implications of Fluvial Sedimentary Systems, International Association of Hydrological Sciences, page 71
   Surface substrate is expressed as the dominant particles (cob cobble, peb pebble, boul boulder)…. 2008, Cécile Claret, Andrew J. Boulton, “Integrating Hydraulic Conductivity with Biogeochemical Gradients and Microbial Activity along River–Groundwater Exchange Zones in a Subtropical Stream”, in Hydrogeology Journal, volume 17, page 153
2. Alternative form of COB