Also 6–8 coble. [This and the sb. cobbler evidently go together etymologically; but the latter, though in its form a deriv. of the vb., has as yet been found much earlier. Of the derivation nothing certain is known: the suggestion that the source is an OF. *coubler var. of coupler to couple, join together, is not tenable.]
1. trans. To mend or repair roughly or clumsily; to patch up.
1496. in Ld. Treas. Acc. Scotl., I. 274. Item, to the man that coblit the lede in Drummyne ijs.
c. 1525. Skelton, Replyc., 222. Ye cobble & ye cloute Holy Scripture so aboute.
1662. Petty, Taxes, 23. Men … cobble up old houses, until they become fundamentally irreparable.
1715. trans. Pancirollus’ Rerum Mem., I. II. xx. 118. Some Tinker cobling a piece of Brass.
1879. ‘E. Garrett’ (Mrs. Mayo), House by Works, II. 10. To pawn her china, and to cobble up her family garments.
b. spec. To mend (shoes), esp. roughly or clumsily; to patch. Also absol.
1552. Huloet, Cobble shoes, calceamenta resarcire.
1598. Famous Vict. Hen. V., x. 12. Oh sir, I haue a great many shooes at home to Cobble.
1601. Shaks., Jul. C., I. i. 22. Why sir, Cobble you.
1664. Butler, Hud., II. ii. 98/432. A man, that serv’d them in a double Capacity to Teach, and Cobble.
1789. Mrs. Piozzi, Journ. France, II. 74. They do condescend to cobble thy shoes, and confine thyself to the vocation for which a man’s shoe.
1860. Smiles, Self-Help, x. 263. Drew studied … philosophy in the intervals of cobbling shoes.
2. To put together or join roughly or clumsily.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, III. ix. (Arb.), 169. To expresse that which the Greeks could do by cobling many words together.
a. 1764. Lloyd, Cobler Tessington. My predecessors often use To coble verse as well as shoes.
1828. Carlyle, Misc. (1857), I. 192. A pasteboard Tree, cobbled together out of size and waste-paper and water-colours.
1855. A. Manning, Old Chelsea Bun-house, xviii. 299. To cobble an additional breadth of dimity to the curtain.
b. intr. or absol.
1809. Byron, Eng. Bards, 769. St. Crispin quits, and cobbles for the muse. Ibid. (1818), Juan, Ded. xiv. Cobbling at manacles for all mankind.
3. Comb., as cobble-text (nonce-wd.), a preacher who deals clumsily and unskilfully with a text.
1830. Galt, Lawrie T., III. xiv. (1849), 132. Strolling Methodists, and those sort of cobble-texts.
