Cobbler

Forms: 4–6 cobeler(e, 5 cobbeler, (cobulare, cobyller), 6 cobblar, 5–9 cobler, 7– cobbler. [See COBBLE v.¹]

  1.  One whose business it is to mend shoes.

1362.  Langl., P. Pl., A. V. 170. Clement þe Cobelere caste of his cloke.

c. 1450.  Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 602. Pictaciarius, a Cobulare, or a Cloutere.

1486.  Bk. St. Albans, F vij a. A Dronkship of Coblers.

c. 1515.  Cocke Lorell’s B. (1843), 1. A coryar And a cobeler, his brother.

1530.  Palsgr., 206/2. Cobblar, sauetier.

1621.  Sanderson, Serm., I. 214. It is never well, when the cobler looketh above the ankle.

1647.  Ward, Simp. Cobler, 59. Such a Cobler, as will not exchange either his blood or his pride, with any Shoo-maker or Tanner in your Realme.

1710.  Brit. Apollo, III. No. 111. 3/2. The Richer the Cobler, The blacker his Thumb.

1766.  Goldsm., Vic. W., xx. Cobblers who mended shoes, never made them.

1809.  Med. Jrnl., XXI. 496. The cobler’s memory cannot be so defective.

1856.  Froude, Hist. Eng., I. 37. If the village cobbler made ‘unhonest’ shoes.

  2.  One who mends clumsily, a clumsy workman, a mere botcher.

1594.  Nashe, Terrors of Night, To Rdr. They would rather be Tailors to make, than botchers or coblers to amend or to marre.

1601.  Shaks., Jul. C., I. i. 11. Truely Sir, in respect of a fine Workman, I am but as you would say, a Cobler.

1681.  W. Robertson, Phraseol. Gen. (1693), 342. A cobbler or botcher.

1791.  Burns, Wks. (Globe), 495. Thou cobbler, botching the flimsy socks of bombast oratory.

1811.  Byron, Let. Dallas, 21 Aug. He was beyond all the Bloomfields and Blacketts, and their collateral cobblers.

  3.  colloq. ‘A drink made of wine, sugar, lemon, and pounded ice, and imbibed through a straw or other tube’ (Bartlett, Dict. Amer.).

  [The origin of this appears to be lost; various conjectures are current, e.g., that it is short for cobbler’s punch (sense 6), and that it ‘patches up’ the drinkers.]

1809.  W. Irving, Knickerb. (1861), 241. The first inventors of those recondite beverages, cock-tail, stone-fence, and sherry-cobbler.

1843.  Dickens, Mart. Chuz., xvii. This wonderful invention, Sir … is called a cobbler. Sherry cobbler, when you name it long; cobbler when you name it short.

  4.  ‘A sort of pie, baked in a pot lined with dough of great thickness, upon which the fruit is placed; according to the fruit, it is an apple or a peach cobbler’ U.S. ‘Western.’ (Bartlett.)

  † 5.

1385.  Nottingh. Corporat. Archives, No. 1286. ‘Cobelers’ included in ‘vesella arborum.’

  6.  Comb. a. attrib., as cobbler-poet; cobbler-fish, a West Indian fish, Blepharis crinitus, having long rays likened to a cobbler’s strings. b. possessive comb., as cobbler’s awl, the bent awl used by a shoemaker or cobbler; a bird, the AVOCET, so called from the form of its beak; cobbler’s end, a waxed end (see END sb. 6 c); cobbler’s punch, a warm drink of beer or ale with the addition of spirit, sugar and spice; cobbler’s wax, a resinous substance used by shoemakers for rubbing their thread.

1759.  B. Stillingfleet, Œcon. Nat., in Misc. Tracts (1762), 110. The *coblers awl … goes every autumn into Italy.

1862.  Johns, Brit. Birds, Index, Cobbler’s awl, the Avocet.

1823.  J. Badcock, Dom. Amusem., 75. A waxed thread (or *cobler’s end) is to be passed tightly round it.

1845.  Longf., Nuremberg. Hans Sachs, the *cobbler-poet, laureate of the gentle craft.

1865.  Dickens, Mut. Fr., IV. xiv. I mostly use it in *cobbler’s punch.

1840.  Marryat, Olla Podr. I shall stick to them like *cobblers’ wax.

  Hence Cobblerism, Cobblership, the state or position of a cobbler. Cobblerless a. nonce-wd., without a cobbler. Cobbler-like a. and adv., like a cobbler or botcher. Cobblery, the occupation of a cobbler, cobbling.

1832.  Blackw. Mag., XXXII. 431. A cobbler … in virtue of his cobblerism is actually much better than a king.

1885.  Mrs. Innes, in Athenæum, 12 Dec., 764. Circumstances soon required a return to ‘our butcherless, bakerless, tailorless, cobblerless … comfortless jungle.’

1576.  Gascoigne, Philomene, Postscr. (Arb.), 119. Se how coblerlike I haue clouted a new patch to an olde sole.

1820.  W. Tooke, trans. Lucian, I. 77, note. Lucian here purposely makes Micyllus joke a little cobler-like.

1838.  Fraser’s Mag., XVIII. 38. Far better … to have taken to … tailorship or cobblership.

1886.  Lubbock, in Fortn. Rev., Oct., 467. I have myself tried an experiment in a small way in the matter of cobblery.