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Added 10 October 2026

cobbler

/ˈkɒblə/ noun

In Latin: calceātor, calceātrīx, calciātor Wiktionary

noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about cobbler at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

A person who makes or repairs shoes.
Tall sweetened iced drink of wine or liquor with fruit.
A pie made of fruit with rich biscuit dough usually only on top of the fruit.

Origin

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.

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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