cobble
1 Americanverb (used with object)
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to mend (shoes, boots, etc.); patch.
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to put together roughly or clumsily.
noun
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a cobblestone.
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cobbles, coal in lumps larger than a pebble and smaller than a boulder.
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Metalworking.
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a defect in a rolled piece resulting from loss of control over its movement.
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Slang. a piece showing bad workmanship.
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verb (used with object)
noun
noun
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short for cobblestone
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geology a rock fragment, often rounded, with a diameter of 64–256 mm and thus smaller than a boulder but larger than a pebble
verb
verb
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to make or mend (shoes)
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to put together clumsily
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of cobble1
First recorded in 1490–1500; apparently back formation from cobbler
Origin of cobble2
First recorded in 1595–1605; of uncertain origin; perhaps cob + -le; see cobblestone
Origin of cobble3
First recorded in 1885–95; perhaps from cobble 2
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.
See Examples For:
Earlier this year, Main Street Sports Group alerted the NBA, National Hockey League and Major League Baseball that it would cease operations, leaving teams scrambling to cobble together TV coverage for their games.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026
Other children at the shelter kick a ball around while their parents make use of food donations to cobble together meals for their little ones.
From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026
And because chatbots cobble together sentences from patterns found in human language, AI messages have their own problematic telltales—clichés and stilted sentences.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026
But if you’re doing it on your own, you can cobble together all of this information and put it in a spreadsheet.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 29, 2026
At least, that's what Lloyd, the older boy that used to cobble shoes back at Rose Hill, told me they looked like.
From "Dread Nation" by Justina Ireland
When pitching “Sterling Point” to Amazon executives, Park said she used a sizzle reel cobbled together from home videos filmed in Muskoka.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026
At night, the narrow cobbled streets of Old Havana are enveloped in inky black, devoid of power and virtually deserted.
From Barron's ● Aug. 18, 2026
“It seemed like they just cobbled up these ideas at the last minute,” he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 9, 2026
Last year organisers ASO introduced a circuit which takes on a cobbled climb over the city's famous Montmartre hill, changing the parcours enough to encourage the heavier, more powerful riders to challenge for victory.
From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026
At once the bricks began to whirl and spin: A hole appeared in the middle of them, which grew wider and wider, finally forming an archway onto the narrow cobbled street that was Diagon Alley.
From "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling
Their company has been prolific at cobbling together oil-rich acreage and flipping it to other energy producers in multibillion-dollar deals.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
Surprised by this unusual cobbling together of Hindu and Muslim names, the vigilantes left.
From BBC ● Feb. 12, 2026
Belgium's complex political system means that De Wever is well versed in the art of painstaking negotiations and cobbling together compromise deals.
From Barron's ● Dec. 17, 2025
It was essentially cobbling together a Frankenstein résumé from leftover pieces of information harvested from my search history, and passing it off as my own work experience.
From Slate ● Oct. 6, 2025
So he did his first experiment at the University of Utah by cobbling together about $30 in parts.
From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel
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