cobbler

Definition

A person who repairs, and sometimes makes, shoes.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English cobeler, cobelere (“mender of shoes, cobbler”) [and other forms]; further origin unknown. The word appears to be derived from an early form of cobble (“to mend roughly, patch; (specifically) to mend shoes, especially roughly”) + -er (suffix forming agent nouns), but is attested much earlier than the verb which suggests that the verb may be a back-formation from cobbler. Sense 2 (“sheep left to the end to be sheared”) is a pun on cobbler’s last (“tool for shaping or preserving the shape of shoes”); while sense 3 (“clumsy workman”) is derived from cobble + -er: see above.

Example Sentences

• "This honest Cobler has done what he might: / That Statesmen in their Shoes might walk upright. / But rotten Shoes of Spannish running-leather: / No Coblers skill, can stitch them strong together."
• "[W]hat would they think of a French cobler cutting ſhoes for ſeveral of his fellow-ſubjects out of an old apple-tree?"
• "All honeſt jogg trotmen, who go on ſmoothly and dully, and write hiſtory and politics, and are praiſed; and who, had they been bred coblers, would all their lives have only mended ſhoes, but never made them."