cobblern.

1362 W. Langland Piers Plowman A. v. 170 Clement þe Cobelere caste of his cloke.

c1450 in T. Wright & R. P. Wülcker Anglo-Saxon & Old Eng. Vocab. (1884) I. 602 Pictaciarius, a Cobulare, or a Cloutere.

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

?1518 Cocke Lorelles Bote sig. B.i A coryat And a cobeler his brother.

1530 J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 206/2 Cobblar, sauetier.

1627 R. Sanderson Ten Serm. 466 It is neuer well, when the Cobler looketh aboue the Ankle.

1647 N. Ward Simple Cobler Aggawam 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 3 No. iii. 3/2 The Richer the Cobler, The blacker his Thumb.

1766 O. Goldsmith Vicar of Wakefield II. i. 5 Coblers..only mended shoes, but never made them.

1809 Med. & Physical Jrnl. 21 496 The cobler's memory cannot be so defective.

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

1893 Herald (Melbourne) 23 Dec. 6/1 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.’

1894 A. Robertson Nuggets 4 The ‘cobbler’, a grizzled, wiry-haired old patriarch that every one had shunned.

1894 E. Wilson In Land of Tui xv. 243 The last sheep to be shorn is often the most difficult to catch, and is called the ‘cobbler’.

1933 Bulletin (Sydney) 20 Sept. 20/1 While you hold the roughest cobbler ever penned.

1940 E. 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.

1945 S. J. Baker Austral. Lang. iii. 63 Cobbler, a dirty, sticky, matted and wrinkly sheep (not always the last, but often left to the last in shearing).

1898 E. E. Morris Austral Eng. Cobbler.

1934 P. Allingham Cheapjack xv. 186 The Cobbler is even more simple. It is a ball game..‘cobbler’ is the slang for ball.

1936 ‘J. Curtis’ Gilt Kid xviii. 178 Well, they got us by the cobblers.

1955 P. Wildeblood Against Law 137 Oh, that's all cobblers.

1962 R. Cook Crust on its Uppers ii. 30 Talking more cobblers to the square inch than the bishop on confirmation day.

1968 Melody 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.

1970 A. Draper Swansong for Rare Bird vii. 60 I was a little suspicious. ‘What's the catch?’ I asked. ‘Why all this cobblers about clothes?’