bobbin

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French bobine,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} also bobin in older use,^[5][7] which Cotgrave (1611) glosses as a quill for a spinning wheel and as a skein of gold or silver thread.^[4] Its further origin is unknown according to the OED, the Shorter Oxford, Hoad, Merriam-Webster Unabridged, Collins and the Oxford Dictionary of English.^{[4][5][7][8][9][10]} Barnhart proposes Old French balbiner, recorded once, in 1396, and probably an alteration of baubier (“to stutter, stammer”), from baube (“stuttering”), from Latin balbus, the instrument perhaps being named for the rattle it made;^[2] Etymonline repeats this as a possibility.^[11] Dictionary.com sees an expressive base akin to bob with a suffix,^[12] Weekley a probable connection with some sense of that word,^[13] and Partridge a probably echoic French bobiner (“to wind”).^[14] Johnson derived it from Latin bombyx.^[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

A reel or spool on which thread is wound: 1530, in Palsgrave's Lesclarcissement.^[4][2][8] Etymonline gives the 1520s and Dictionary.com the range 1520–30,^[11][12] while the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English say mid 16th century.^[5][10]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined it only as the notched wooden pin of the lacemaker, quoting the Tatler for women who "sit down to bobbins",^[15] while the OED also describes the flanged, perforated cylinder that turns on a spindle and the small spool inside a sewing machine's shuttle.^[4] A cord or round tape was called bobbin from 1641, in Milton.^[4] In the 19th century the name passed to the knob of wood on a latchstring (1820, in a Little Red Riding-hood) and to the reel of wire in electrical instruments (1866).^[4] Hardy's Madding Crowd (1874) has a hand pawing at a door for the bobbin, and in English dialect it was also a tape in a hem and, in north Staffordshire, a piece of pressed gunpowder for blasting coal, from its likeness to a full bobbin.^[16] Scots used it about 1562 for the seed-pod of the birch.^[4] The plural bobbins, rubbish, is British regional slang, chiefly from Lancashire, first recorded in 1988 in F. Sidebottom's "The Robins aren't Bobbins".^[4][9]

Timeline

• 1530 – a reel or spool on which thread is wound.^[4][2]
• c. 1562 – Scottish, the seed-pod of the birch (obsolete).^[4]
• 1641 – a fine cord or round tape.^[4]
• 1820 – a rounded piece of wood on a string, used to raise a door latch.^[4]
• 1866 – a reel round which wire is coiled in electrical instruments.^[4]
• 1883 – verb, to wind on bobbins.^[4]
• 1988 – plural, British regional slang, rubbish.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A spool or reel on which thread or yarn is wound, to be drawn off as needed.^[9][4]
2. A cylinder with a flange at one or both ends, turning on a spindle in spinning, weaving or sewing machinery.^[8][4]
3. A small pin of wood or bone on which thread is wound for working bobbin lace.^[8][4]
4. A reel on which insulated wire is wound in a coil, or the coil itself.^[9][8][4]
5. A narrow braid or cord, used for binding, trimming or piping.^[9][8][4]
6. The small piece of wood on the end of a latchstring, pulled to lift a door latch.^[8][9][4]
7. In dry cell construction, the carbon electrode with its depolarizer moulded around it.^[8]
8. (British slang, plural) Something worthless; rubbish.^[9][4]

Verb

1. To wind thread or yarn on bobbins.^[4]

Word family

• bobbinet
• bobbin lace

Usage notes

The OED enters two further nouns of this spelling, both of uncertain origin: one is a small bundle of firewood, recorded from 1887 and compared with babbin,^[4] which Wright's dialect dictionary reports from Kent, with the bobbiner who dealt in such bundles.^[16] The other occurs attributively for a payment made to a fish porter at Billingsgate market, from 1936.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
15. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)