Also 6 cobbel, 6–7 coble. [Of obscure etymology: app. related to COB sb.1 in some of its senses. The earliest connection in which it appears is cobbled-stone (if this is not an error): see COBBLED.]
1. A water-worn rounded stone, esp. of the size suitable for paving. In earlier times often identified in use with pebble.
1475, 1530. [see COBBLE-STONE].
1600. Fairfax, Tasso, XX. xxix. Their slings held cobles round.
1691. Ray, N. C. Words, 16. A Cobble, a Pebble.
1727. Beverley Beek Act, 2. Cobbles or pebbles for paving.
1880. L. Wallace, Ben-Hur, 62. The road is … difficult on account of the cobbles left loose and dry by the washing of the rains.
attrib. 1883. Agnes Crane, in Leisure Hour, 360/1. Dusty streets, separated from the narrow cobble footways by a flowing gutter.
1889. Q. Rev., April, 364. Old heavy-timbered cottages with thick stone or cobble walling.
b. transf.
1880. Besant & Rice, Seamy Side, xx. 173. A cobble of bluestone for washing.
1881. Raymond, Mining Gloss., Cobble (Penn.), an imperfectly puddled ball which goes to pieces in the squeezer.
2. pl. Coal of the size of small cobble stones.
1815. J. Farey, View Derbyshire, I. 187. Cobbles … are what we in London should call good round coals, being the larger lumps picked out of what they call the sleck or waste small coals.
1883. Daily News, 20 Sept., 7/5. Advt., Kitchen Cobbles, 18s.
attrib. 1869. ‘Ouida,’ Puck, iii. (1877), 26. The ruddy light of the cobble fire.
† 3. (See quot.: perh. not the same word.) Obs.
1570. Levins, Manip., 55. A Cobbel, dullard, hæbes, bardus.
4. Comb., as cobble-hedge, a fence of boulders.
1887. Hall Caine, Son of Hagar, I. I. v. 110. To see over the stone cobble-hedge into the field.
