cobblers

/ (ˈkɒbləz) British slang /

pl n

rubbish; nonsense: a load of old cobblers
another word for testicles: See testicle

interjection

an exclamation of strong disagreement

Origin of cobblers

C20: from rhyming slang cobblers' awls balls

usage For cobblers

The use of cobblers meaning "nonsense" is so mild that hardly anyone these days is likely to be offended by it. Most people are probably unaware of its rhyming-slang association with ``balls'', and therefore take it at its face value as a more colourful synonym for ``nonsense''. The classic formulation "a load of (old) cobblers" seems to be particularly popular in the tabloid press

Words Nearby cobblers

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

How to use cobblers in a sentence

One of these yellow-skinned cobblers will make a pair of Vel-Schoenen in less than a couple of hours.
The Vee-Boers | Mayne Reid
The children and cobblers and shop-keepers buying with the yellow gold the "thousand years old names!"
The Kempton-Wace Letters | Jack London
Yonder lies the district called the 'Forêt Noire'--a land of unpleasing atmosphere inhabited by cobblers and clothes-menders.
In the Days of My Youth | Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
Only those who toil in the forests don the uncouth boots turned out by the firm of cobblers known as Block & Nicklestick.
West Wind Drift | George Barr McCutcheon
Young America sipping cobblers, and roving about in very loose and immoral coats, voted it "a case."
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVII, August 1852, Vol. V | Various

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