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Etymology and origin of the English word cob

English has several words spelled cob: the OED separates a noun of many senses (a leader, a male swan, a horse, a rounded lump, a corncob), a verb meaning to strike, and the noun for a building material of clay and straw, each with its own history.[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

cob1 rounded lump, male swan, horse

Confidence
Uncertain
First attested
1406 a Winchester account roll

Etymology

The word for a leader, a male swan or a rounded lump is of uncertain origin.[1][3][5] The OED notes that its senses have little obvious connection and may be of diverse origin, roughly grouped round the ideas of something big or stout, something rounded or lumpy, and a head or top, all closely interwoven.[1] The suggestion that "rounded head" is the basic idea and that cob is a variant of cop is not favoured by the history of that word,[1] and Liberman likewise holds that cob often alternates with cop but is neither a variant nor a derivative of it.[6] Weekley thought that some senses may be identical with cop, from Old English copp (“summit”),[7] and Etymonline takes some senses from that Old English word and others from Old Norse kubbi or Low German, perhaps all from Proto-Germanic *kubb- (“something rounded”).[8] The Middle English Dictionary compares Old Norse kobbi (“seal”), also used as a nickname, and Collins and Merriam-Webster Unabridged also relate the word to it;[9][10][2] Barnhart compares Icelandic kubbi (“block, lump”) and kufr (“round point, heap”),[11][12] and Partridge assumes a Scandinavian and Low German word for "something plump", comparing Dutch kobbe (“seagull”) and West Frisian kobbe.[13] Hoad cites Medieval Latin cobus (“cob-loaf”) from the 13th century and compares West Flemish kobbe (“tuft of feathers, head of hair”).[14] Liberman, Partridge and Klein connect the word with cub,[6][13][15] and Ayto finds a link with cop and even with Latin caput (“head”) tempting.[16] In some of the "rounded" senses cobble was the earlier word.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A male swan: in 1406, le cobbe in a Latin account roll from Winchester.[9][11] A leading man or gang leader: about 1412, in Hoccleve's Regement of Princes, where great cobbes maintain riot.[9][1] Etymonline notes that the surname Cobb (1066) suggests an Old English nickname for a big man,[8] and the Middle English Dictionary records Cobbe as a surname from about 1200.[9]

Semantic evolution

The oldest senses describe something big or important: a great man (before 1420), a rich man or miser (1548–1681) and a huge, lumpish person (1582), and the male swan, recorded in English from 1570.[1] The OED notes that in later dialect use the leader sense suggests "the man at the top".[1] The sense of something rounded appears in the cobnut (1589), the cob-loaf (1609), a lump of coal (1804) and the stone of a fruit (before 1825), and that of a head in the head of a red herring (1594–1632).[1] The stout, short-legged horse is recorded from 1818;[1] the OED notes the view that it is short for cob-horse, and Hoad and Weekley report the explanation that it was named from dialect cobs, testicles.[1][14][7] In America cob was used for the shoot on which maize grains grow: Barnhart dates it to 1684, in Increase Mather,[11][12] and the OED to 1702, in Cotton Mather's Magnalia.[1] A dialect verb cob, to top or excel, was formed from the noun by 1846.[1][17] English dialects had many further senses: in Yorkshire the top of a hill, in Norfolk and Suffolk the seed-head of clover, and in Northamptonshire a heap of hay ready for the wagon.[17] In British prison slang a cob was the regulation loaf, and to have a cob on (1937) is to be in a bad temper, of unknown origin.[18][1]

Timeline

  • 1406 – a male swan.[9][11]
  • before 1420 – a great or leading man.[1][9]
  • 1548 – a wealthy man, a miser (obsolete by 1681).[1]
  • 1589 – a cobnut.[1][11]
  • 1594 – the head of a red herring (obsolete by 1632).[1][11]
  • 1609 – a small round loaf, cob-loaf.[1]
  • 1616 – a small stack of hay or corn.[1]
  • 1684 – the cob of maize, a corncob.[11][12]
  • 1804 – a lump of coal.[1]
  • 1818 – a stout, short-legged horse.[1]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A male swan; compare pen.[10][2][1]
  2. A sturdy, short-legged horse for riding or light draught.[10][1]
  3. A corncob, the woody core on which the grains of maize grow: corn on the cob.[10][1]
  4. A cobnut, the nut of a hazel.[10][2][1]
  5. A small rounded lump or heap, as of coal or ore.[10][2]
  6. A small round loaf of bread.[10][2]
  7. (dialect) A leader or chief.[2][1]
  8. (obsolete, 1548–1681) A rich man; a miser.[1][3]
  9. (obsolete, 1594–1632) The head of a herring.[1][2]

Word family

  • cobby
  • Welsh cob

cob2 to strike

Confidence
Uncertain
Formation
Onomatopoeia
First attested
c. 1540 Destruction of Troy
From
Middle English cobben

Etymology

The word for striking is of doubtful origin, perhaps imitative of a blow.[1][3][7] It is inherited from Middle English cobben (“to fight, give blows”).[9][2] The Middle English Dictionary compares Old French cobir and cobe (“a blow or thrust”),[9] while Merriam-Webster Unabridged relates it to Icelandic kubba (“to chop”), Norwegian kubbe (“log”) and the Middle English noun cobbe (“big man, leader”),[2] and Stratmann compares Swedish kubba.[19]

Earliest recorded meaning

To fight or exchange blows: in the Destruction of Troy, a poem perhaps of the late 14th century preserved in a manuscript of about 1540, where three thousand men cobbyt full kantly.[9][1]

Semantic evolution

The Middle English sense of fighting died out,[1][3] and the verb reappears in the 18th century in particular uses: among sailors, to beat someone on the buttocks with a flat instrument as a punishment (1769, in Falconer's marine dictionary), and in Cornish mining, to break ore into small pieces (1778).[1] Scott used it in Waverley (1814) for striking someone with a wooden sword.[17] In dialect it also meant to thresh out seed (1796) and to throw (1867, in Kent).[1] The noun cob, a blow, is recorded from the early 19th century in American and dialect use.[3][2]

Timeline

  • c. 1540 – to fight, give blows (obsolete).[1][9]
  • 1769 – nautical, to strike on the buttocks with a flat instrument.[1]
  • 1778 – to crush or break ore.[1]
  • 1796 – to thresh out seed.[1]
  • 1825 – in dialect, to strike.[1]
  • 1867 – to throw.[1]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To strike or thump, especially on the buttocks.[2][10][1]
  2. To break ore into small pieces before sorting it.[2][1]
  3. (dialect) To thresh out grain or seed.[2][1]
  4. (archaic) To punish a sailor by beating him on the buttocks with a flat piece of wood.[2][1][3]
  5. (obsolete) To fight or exchange blows.[1][9][3]

Noun

  1. (dialect) A blow, especially on the buttocks.[2][3]

cob3 building material of clay and straw

Confidence
Unknown
First attested
1602 Richard Carew, Survey of Cornwall

Etymology

The word for the building material is of unknown origin.[1][3][20] The OED notes that one Hampshire glossary explained it as "lump of clay", which would identify it with cob in the sense of a small heap or lump, but finds this improbable;[1] Merriam-Webster Unabridged takes it as probably from that sense,[2] and Weekley thought it may go with cob, a little round heap.[7] Liberman suggests that it may come from the Cornish dialect noun cob, a muddle or mess, which he takes as imitative.[6][17]

Earliest recorded meaning

A mixture of clay, gravel and straw for building walls: 1602, in Richard Carew's Survey of Cornwall, where the poor cottager is content with cob for his walls and thatch for his roof.[1]

Semantic evolution

The material was used especially in south-western England.[1] The English Dialect Dictionary records it from Hampshire, Dorset, Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and East Anglia, with compounds such as cob-wall, cob-house, cob-cot and cob-mason, a builder of cob walls, and the Dorset spelling ceobb.[17] Collins labels the word British and New Zealand,[10] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged British.[2]

Timeline

  • 1602 – a mixture of clay, gravel and straw for building walls.[1]
  • 1857 – cob-earth and cob-masons in Devon.[17]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A building material of unburnt clay mixed with straw and often gravel, used for the walls of small buildings, especially in south-western England.[10][2][1]

References

  1. ^ 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 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c Liberman, Anatoly (2008), An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
  7. ^ a b c d Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  11. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  12. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  13. ^ a b Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  14. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  15. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  16. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  17. ^ a b c d e f 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)
  18. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  19. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  20. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
Cite this entry

“Cob.” Etymologically, 8 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/cob. Accessed 9 Nov. 2026.

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