[f. COB v. or sb.]
1. Naut. A way of punishing sailors: see quot.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), Cobbing … is performed by striking the offender a certain number of times on the breech with a flat piece of wood called the cobbing-board.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulgar Tongue, Cobbing … consists in bastonadoing the offender on the posteriors with a cobbing stick, or pipe staff.
1844. P. Parley’s Annual, V. 291. Jack was accordingly ordered to have a ‘cobbing.’
2. Mining, etc. (See quots.)
1870. Eng. Mech., 11 Feb., 518/1. Crushing machinery … to crush the old bricks as ‘cobbing.’
1877. Encycl. Brit., VI. 348/2. Cobbing … broken pieces of old bricks and bottoms of furnaces that have absorbed copper.
1880. W. Cornw. Gloss., Cobbing-hammer, a miner’s tool.
1881. Raymond, Mining Gloss., Cobbing (Cornw.), breaking ore to sort out its better portions.
3. ? = Topping, polling: see quot. dial.
1863. Morton, Cycl. Agric. (E. D. S.), Cobbing (Essex), cutting the tops of pollards.
