cobbing
cobbing is the present participle and gerund of cob.
Noun
cobbing (countable and uncountable, plural cobbings)
- an unofficial form of punishment among the crew or prisoners involving blows to the buttocks from a piece of wood or a handsaw.
- Previous to the infliction of cobbing, or booting, the delinquent is fairly tried by a court, consisting of–a president, the oldest soldier; members, next two oldest soldiers, youngest soldier, next youngest soldier.1846, Henry Marshall, Military Miscellany, page 156
- The manual separation of minerals in ore using a hammer.
- It is, therefore, always so arranged that the dressing progresses gradually through all the operations, beginning in the mine and ending with the cobbing, or, as the case may be. with the concentration.1868, Guido Küstel, A Treatise on Concentration of All Kinds of Ores, page 28
- To-day, however, cobbing is still an important operation, carried out with a three-fold purpose: first, to separate pure masses of different minerals from one another and from adhereing pieces of gangue, preparing them at once for the market with qa minimum loss from comminution; secondly, to...1884, Wheaton Bradish Kunhardt, The Practice of Ore Dressing in Europe, page 19
- The production of cobs.
- In America, Canada, and Central Europe, for example, snow lies feet deep on the ground in the winter, and the summers are sufficiently hot to enable maize to be grown successfully for cobbing,1955, Sir Enoch Bruce Levy, Grasslands of New Zealand, page 64
- There were highly significant differences in percent cobbing between the two fertilizer levels, with the unfertilized treatment producing significantly more cobs than the fertilized treatment.1995, Maize research for stress environments, page 50
Meaning of cob
Verb (1)
cob (third-person singular simple present cobs, present participle cobbing, simple past and past participle cobbed)
- To construct using mud blocks or to seal a wall using mud or an artificial equivalent.
- Windows and other details can be cobbed into place, and niches and reliefs are easy to create.2004, Joe Kennedy, Building Without Borders: Sustainable Construction for the Global Village, →ISBN, page 178
- To have the heads mature into corncobs.
- Ninety Day came to maturity very early and cobbed plentifully, but the grain proved shallow and lacking in meal.1907, Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales - Volume 17, page 731
- To remove the kernels from a corncob.
- Darning socks, knitting, fancy work, cooking, housework, cobbing corn.1969, Jim Henderson, Open Country Calling: People and Places Out of Town, page 82
- To thresh.
- The price paid for cobbing (separating the seed from the straw) and drawing the seed of red and white clover is from 3s. 6d. to 4s. 6d. the bushel of 5 stone of seed.1847, British Farmer's Magazine - Issue 10, page 510
- To break up ground with a hoe.
- I have in this manner cobbed, with great success, lands that had formerly been in tillage, which would no longer bring corn because they were exhausted, either by consecutive crops or by the great quantity of weeks, which impoverished them: these became as good as my regularly cobbed lands.1762, Louis François Henri de Menon (Marquis de Turbilly.), A discourse on the cultivation of waste and barren lands, page 90
Verb (2)
cob (third-person singular simple present cobs, present participle cobbing, simple past and past participle cobbed)
- To beat with a flat instrument; to paddle.
- […] he pulled off his hat, and said he was going to cob him for breaking the rules and laws of the ship’s company.1803, Andrew Mitchell, "Extract from the Trial of the Mutineers on board the Bantry Bay Squadron", The Annual Register, volume XLIV, R. Wilks, page 556
Forms of cobbing
| plural | cobbings |
|---|
Origin of cobbing
From cob + -ing.
Questions about cobbing
- What does cobbing mean?
- Cobbing means an unofficial form of punishment among the crew or prisoners involving blows to the buttocks from a piece of wood or a handsaw.
- What is cobbing the present participle and gerund of?
- Cobbing is the present participle and gerund of cob.
- What part of speech is cobbing?
- Cobbing is a noun.
- What is the plural of cobbing?
- The plural of cobbing is cobbings.
Words near cobbing in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cobbing (page history and authors); cob (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “cobbing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cobbing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.