| 释义 |
cobbler|ˈkɒblə(r)|
Forms: 4–6 cobeler(e, 5 cobbeler, (cobulare, cobyller), 6 cobblar, 5–9 cobler, 7– cobbler.
[See cobble v.1]
1. a. One whose business it is to mend shoes.
1362Langl. P. Pl. A. v. 170 Clement þe Cobelere caste of his cloke. c1450Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 602 Pictaciarius, a Cobulare, or a Cloutere. 1486Bk. St. Albans F vij a, A Dronkship of Coblers. c1515Cocke Lorell's B. (1843) 1 A coryar And a cobeler, his brother. 1530Palsgr. 206/2 Cobblar, sauetier. 1621Sanderson Serm. I. 214 It is never well, when the cobler looketh above the ankle. 1647Ward 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. 1710Brit. Apollo III. No. iii. 3/2 The Richer the Cobler, The blacker his Thumb. 1766Goldsm. Vic. W. xx, Cobblers who mended shoes, never made them. 1809Med. Jrnl. XXI. 496 The cobler's memory cannot be so defective. 1856Froude Hist. Eng. I. 37 If the village cobbler made ‘unhonest’ shoes.
b. The last sheep to be sheared, in punning allusion to the cobbler's last (see also quot. 1945). Austral. and N.Z. slang.
1893Herald (Melbourne) 23 Dec. 6/1 (Morris), Every one might not know what a ‘cobbler’ is. It is the last sheep in a catching pen, and consequently a bad one to shear, as the easy ones are picked first... In the harvest field English rustics used to say, when picking up the last sheaf, ‘This is what the cobbler threw at his wife.’ ‘What?’ ‘The last.’ 1894A. Robertson Nuggets 4 The ‘cobbler’, a grizzled, wiry-haired old patriarch that every one had shunned. 1894Mrs R. Wilson Land of Tui xv. 243 The last sheep to be shorn is often the most difficult to catch, and is called the ‘cobbler’. 1933Bulletin (Sydney) 20 Sept. 20/1 While you hold the roughest cobbler ever penned. 1940E. C. Studholme Te Waimate (1954) xv. 130 The [old hand] would let the learner in for the ‘cobbler’, or hard shearing sheep, at the end of every pen. 1945Baker Austral. Lang. iii. 63 Cobbler, a dirty, sticky, matted and wrinkly sheep (not always the last, but often left to the last in shearing).
c. [Rhyming slang from cobbler's (or cobblers') awls.] A ball; esp. in pl., ‘balls’, testicles; nonsense, rubbish.
1934P. Allingham Cheapjack xv. 186 The Cobbler is even more simple. It is a ball game..‘cobbler’ is the slang for ball. 1936J. Curtis Gilt Kid xviii. 178 Well, they got us by the cobblers. 1955P. Wildeblood Against Law 137 Oh, that's all cobblers. 1962R. Cook Crust on its Uppers ii. 30 Talking more cobblers to the square inch than the bishop on confirmation day. 1968Melody Maker 5 Oct. 6/4 Geno Washington says Grapefruit's recent attack on the Maryland Club, Glasgow, was ‘a load of cobblers’. They are one of the best audiences in Britain, says Geno. 1970A. Draper Swansong for Rare Bird vii. 60, I was a little suspicious. ‘What's the catch?’ I asked. ‘Why all this cobblers about clothes?’
2. One who mends clumsily, a clumsy workman, a mere botcher.
1594Nashe Terrors of Night To Rdr., They would rather be Tailors to make, than botchers or coblers to amend or to marre. 1601Shakes. Jul. C. i. i. 11 Truely Sir, in respect of a fine Workman, I am but as you would say, a Cobler. 1681W. Robertson Phraseol. Gen. (1693) 342 A cobbler or botcher. 1791Burns Wks. (Globe) 495 Thou cobbler, botching the flimsy socks of bombast oratory. 1811Byron 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 7), and that it ‘patches up’ the drinkers.] 1809W. Irving Knickerb. (1861) 241 The first inventors of those recondite beverages, cock-tail, stone-fence, and sherry-cobbler. 1843Dickens Mart. Chuz. xvii, This wonderful invention, Sir..is called a cobbler. Sherry cobbler, when you name it long; cobbler when you name it short. 1852G. W. Curtis Lotos-eating 105 Various other select parties are..watching the sails and sipping cobblers. 1862E. McDermott Pop. Guide Internat. Exhib. 185 There is an American bar, where visitors may indulge in ‘juleps’, ‘cock-tails’, ‘cobblers’, ‘rattle-snakes’, [etc.]. 1922Glasgow Herald 13 May 6 Untold recipes..for cobblers, coolers, highballs, frappés.
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.)
1859in Bartlett Dict. Amer. 90 1880 ‘Mark Twain’ Tramp Abroad xlix. 575, I have..made out a little bill of fare..as follows:..Peach cobbler, Southern style. 1946Farmhouse Fare 130 October cobbler. 1 quart blackberries... Place the berries..in a buttered pie-dish and sprinkle with lemon juice..roll out the paste to the size of the pie-dish. Place on top of the fruit.
†5.
1385Nottingh. Corporat. Archives No. 1286 ‘Cobelers’ included in ‘vesella arborum’.
6. A horse chestnut used in the children's game of ‘conkers’. dial.
1896G. F. Northall Warwick. Word-bk. 51 Cobbler, the fruit of the horse-chestnut tree. Cobblers, the well-known game of striking one dried ‘cobbler’, threaded on a string, against that of an opponent, to try their respective strength. 1913D. H. Lawrence Sons & Lovers i. iii. 50 He pulled from his pocket a black old horse-chestnut hanging on a string. This old cobbler had ‘cobbled’—hit and smashed—seventeen other cobblers.
7. 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 n. 6 c); cobbler's peg (freq. in pl.) Austral., a popular name for the weed Bidens pilosa, of the family Compositæ; formerly used for Erigeron linifolius, another weed of the same family; (see also quot. 1908); 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.
1759B. Stillingfleet Econ. Nat. in Misc. Tracts (1762) 110 The *coblers awl..goes every autumn into Italy. 1862Johns Brit. Birds Index, Cobbler's awl, the Avocet.
1823J. Badcock Dom. Amusem. 75 A waxed thread (or *cobler's end) is to be passed tightly round it.
1883F. M. Bailey Synopsis Queensland Flora 243 E[rigeron] linifolius... ‘*Cobblers' pegs’. 1906― Weeds of Queensland 73 E[rigeron] linifolius... Cobbler's pegs, of some years ago, now the sobriquet is applied to Bidens pilosa. 1908E. J. Banfield Confessions of Beachcomber i. vi. 201 The white mangrove..has erect, obtrusive, respiratory shoots from the roots.., resembling asparagus shoots or rake tines (called by some cobbler's pegs). 1933Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Nov. 28/4 Thistles and cobbler's pegs are spread by the wind. 1944Mod. Jun. Dict. (ed. 7) 80 Cobbler's Pegs, A common Australian plant of roadsides and waste land with black, barbed seeds resembling small nails. 1961P. White Riders in Chariot viii. 246 ‘What is it?’ ‘Cow-itch,’ replied the child... ‘T'is-urnt! It's cobblers'-pegs!’ shrieked one... ‘Silly old weeds!’
1845Longfellow Nuremberg, Hans Sachs, the *cobbler-poet, laureate of the gentle craft.
1865Dickens Mut. Fr. iv. xiv, I mostly use it in *cobbler's punch.
1840Marryat Olla Podr., I shall stick to them like *cobblers' wax.
Hence ˈcobblerism, ˈcobblership, the state or position of a cobbler. ˈcobblerless a. nonce-wd., without a cobbler. cobbler-like a. and adv., like a cobbler or botcher. ˈcobblery, the occupation of a cobbler, cobbling.
1832Blackw. Mag. XXXII. 431 A cobbler..in virtue of his cobblerism is actually much better than a king. 1885Mrs. Innes in Athenæum 12 Dec. 764 Circumstances soon required a return to ‘our butcherless, bakerless, tailorless, cobblerless..comfortless jungle’. 1576Gascoigne Philomene Postscr. (Arb.) 119 Se how coblerlike I haue clouted a new patch to an olde sole. 1820W. Tooke tr. Lucian I. 77 note, Lucian here purposely makes Micyllus joke a little cobler-like. 1838Fraser's Mag. XVIII. 381 Far better..to have taken to..tailorship or cobblership. 1886Lubbock in Fortn. Rev. Oct. 467, I have myself tried an experiment in a small way in the matter of cobblery. |