cob
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /kɑb/
enpr: kŏb
ipa: /kɒb/
rhymes: -ɒb
Forms: form: cobs
form: cobbing
form: cobbed
form: cobbed
Etymology: 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”).
Senses: examples: text: […] he pulled off his hat, and said he was going to cob him for breaking the rules and laws of the ship’s company.
ref: 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
text: White prisoners, and sometimes black ones, are put into the dungeon, and ironed; and black prisoners have been “cobbed.”
ref: 1862, United States Senate, Senate Documents - Volume 172, page 19:
text: […] 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.
ref: 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
text: 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.
ref: 2007, Darius Rejali, Torture and Democracy, Princeton University Press,, →ISBN, page 272:
text: 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."
ref: 2009, Darius Rejali, Torture and Democracy, page 272:
text: Kell replied, 'I have, five of them, and some told me you was in liquor or I would have cobbed you.'
ref: 2020, John D. Byrn, Naval Courts Martial, 1793-1815:
glosses: To beat with a flat instrument; to paddle.
examples: text: Well, sir, I’m sure I’d be rid of it fast enough if I could naut cob it away like a stoan.
ref: 1862, Philip Gilbert Hamerton (quoting a Lancashire shepherd), A Painter’s Camp in the Highlands, volume I, Macmillan and Co., page 69
text: Each had a stone in his grasp in an instant, and simultaneously they cobbed at Master Bunnie.
ref: 1878, Robert Richardson, "How the Fight was Stopped", in The Young Cragsman, And Other Stories, William Oliphant and Co., page 72
text: 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.
ref: 1895, John Trafford Clegg, “James Leach”, in The Works of John Trafford Clegg, James Clegg, page 287:
text: Although, wait -- best avoid rocks. Terrorists are known to cob them at the democratic forces of law and order in the free world.
ref: 2004, Ross Howard, “Re: Fox News on Terrorism”, in alt.usage.english (Usenet):
glosses: To throw, chuck, lob.
examples: text: A ſhade or ſhelter from the weather, under which the Cobbers cob the Ore.
ref: 1778, William Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, James Phillips, page 327:
text: 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: […]
ref: 1884, Wheaton Bradish Kunhardt, The Practice of Ore Dressing in Europe, page 20:
text: […] 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.
ref: 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
text: These blocks are sledged by band, sorted and hand cobbed to remove impurities; but hand cobbing is slow and expensive.
ref: 1919, United States. Bureau of Mines, Report of Investigations, page 3:
text: The bulk of adhering rock is cobbed, and the mica is shipped to grinding plants
ref: 1948, Gerald A. Munson, Fremont F. Clarke, Studies on Methods for Recovering Scrap Mica from Pegmatite of the Black Hills, South Dakota, page 9:
ref: 1961, John Calvin Reed, “Geology of the Mount McKinley quadrangle, Alaska”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), →OCLC, page 13:
text: 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.
ref: 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:
text: 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.
ref: 2004, Lynne Mayers, Balmaidens, The Hypatia Trust,, →ISBN, page 28:
text: Capacity is also available for the export of an additional 1000 metric tons of cobbed beryl per year.
ref: 2009, Kenneth A. Walsh, Beryllium Chemistry and Processing, →ISBN, page 25:
text: 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.
ref: 2011, Patricia Mercier, Crystal Skulls & the Enigma of Time, Appendix 2, →ISBN:
glosses: To chip off unwanted pieces of stone, so as to form a desired shape or improve the quality of mineral ore.
Coordinate terms: topics: mining
business
word: sledge
topics: mining
business
word: spall