cobblers


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cobblers

(ˈkɒbləz)
pl n
1. rubbish; nonsense: a load of old cobblers.
2. (Anatomy) another word for testicles. See testicle
interj
an exclamation of strong disagreement
[C20: from rhyming slang cobblers' awls balls]
Usage: 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
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.cobblers - nonsense; "I think that is a load of cobblers"
hokum, meaninglessness, nonsense, nonsensicality, bunk - a message that seems to convey no meaning
Britain, Great Britain, U.K., UK, United Kingdom, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - a monarchy in northwestern Europe occupying most of the British Isles; divided into England and Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland; `Great Britain' is often used loosely to refer to the United Kingdom
2.cobblers - a man's testicles (from Cockney rhyming slang: cobbler's awl rhymes with ball)
ballock, testicle, testis, orchis, egg, ball, nut - one of the two male reproductive glands that produce spermatozoa and secrete androgens; "she kicked him in the balls and got away"
Britain, Great Britain, U.K., UK, United Kingdom, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - a monarchy in northwestern Europe occupying most of the British Isles; divided into England and Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland; `Great Britain' is often used loosely to refer to the United Kingdom
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
Translations

cobblers

[ˈkɒbləz] NPL (Brit)
1. (Anat) → cojones mpl
2. (fig) → chorradas fpl
Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

cobblers

pl (Brit inf: = rubbish) → Scheiße f (inf), → Mist m (inf); (what a load of old) cobblers!was fürn Haufen Mist! (inf)
Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007
References in classic literature ?
I would mend the tire, having attended ambulance classes, do it very quietly so that she wouldn't hear, like the fairy cobblers who used to mend people's boots while they slept, and then wait in ambush to watch the effect upon her when she awoke.
'When I use it at all, I mostly use it in cobblers' punch.'
A COBBLER unable to make a living by his trade and made desperate by poverty, began to practice medicine in a town in which he was not known.
It seemed as though Saint Dunstan was like to answer his prayer, for along the road came plodding a certain cobbler, one Quince, of Derby, who had been to take a pair of shoes to a farmer nigh Kirk Langly, and was now coming back home again, with a fair boiled capon in his pouch and a stout pottle of beer by his side, which same the farmer had given him for joy of such a stout pair of shoon.
In this place half an hour afterwards he was found by Gibbs, the village cobbler, who had been sent for him in some haste.
I like to take in hand none but clean, virgin, fair-and-square mathematical jobs, something that regularly begins at the beginning, and is at the middle when midway, and comes to an end at the conclusion; not a cobbler's job, that's at an end in the middle, and at the beginning at the end.
One afternoon, near the end of the first summer, when I went to the village to get a shoe from the cobbler's, I was seized and put into jail, because, as I have elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax to, or recognize the authority of, the State which buys and sells men, women, and children, like cattle, at the door of its senate-house.
They knew perfectly well what was cooking at every fire throughout the city, from the chamberlain's to the cobbler's; the court-ladies danced and clapped their hands.
In all their variety of occupation,--the cobbler, the blacksmith, the soldier, the lady with her fan, the toper with his bottle, the milkmaid sitting by her, cow--this fortunate little society might truly be said to enjoy a harmonious existence, and to make life literally a dance.
One day, taking a pair of shoes to be mended, he saw the cobbler's wife seated by the fire, suffering from the terrible symptoms of heart-disease and dropsy, which he had witnessed as the precursors of his mother's death.
He lives on the Hill, back of the Mayfair bakery, runnin' a cobbler's shop that everybody knows, and you'll have no trouble.
The thought pleased the good cobbler very much; and one evening, when all the things were ready, they laid them on the table, instead of the work that they used to cut out, and then went and hid themselves, to watch what the little elves would do.