cob
noun
a corncob.
cob
1 American
[kob]
/ kɒb /
noun
cobs
plural
-
a corncob.
-
a male swan.
-
a short-legged, thick-set horse, often having a high gait and frequently used for driving.
-
British. a mixture of clay and straw, used as a building material.
-
British Dialect. a rounded mass or lump.
-
a crude silver or gold Spanish-American coin of the 16th to 18th centuries, characteristically irregular in shape and bearing only a partial impression of the dies from which it was struck.
COB
2
American
abbreviation
Business.
cob
1
British
/ kɒb /
noun
-
a male swan
-
a thickset short-legged type of riding and draught horse
-
short for corncob corncob pipe cobnut
-
another name for hazel
-
a small rounded lump or heap of coal, ore, etc
-
a building material consisting of a mixture of clay and chopped straw
-
Also called: cob loaf. a round loaf of bread
verb
cob
2
British
/ kɒb /
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of cob
First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English cobbe “male swan, leader of a gang”; these and various subsequent senses are obscurely related and probably in part of distinct origin
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“I needed to know specific details about proper hot-pepper husbandry,” says Caruso, who lives in Cos Cob, Conn. “She would come back with everything I needed.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 5, 2026
Beau assures her that he’ll eventually figure it out, but time is not on Cob County’s side.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 22, 2025
Surely it must have been one of those fake Twitter accounts that crop up at times like this, authored by someone named Cob Bondotta.
From Seattle Times • Mar. 14, 2023
Some residents and volunteers built small homes with straw and mud, called cob, in a section of the camp they called Cob on Wood.
From Salon • Mar. 8, 2023
Jake tried to quiet him, but Cob brushed the younger man aside.
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
