Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A short nail with a thick head used to protect the soles of shoes or boots.
  • adjective Having or decorated with a raised pattern of bumps resembling such nails.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A short thick nail with a pointed tang and a large head, used for nailing the soles of heavy boots and shoes.
  • noun A clownish person: used in contempt.
  • To furnish or fasten with hobnails.
  • To tread roughly upon, as with heavy hobnailed shoes.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A short, sharp-pointed, large-headed nail, -- used in shoeing horses and for studding the soles of heavy shoes.
  • noun A clownish person; a rustic.
  • noun (Med.) a disease in which the liver is shrunken, hard, and covered with projections like hobnails; one of the forms of cirrhosis of the liver.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A short nail with a thick head, typically used in boot soles.
  • verb To fit with hobnails.
  • verb transitive To tread down roughly, as with hobnailed shoes.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb supply with hobnails
  • noun a short nail with a thick head; used to protect the soles of boots

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[hob, peg, projection (obsolete) + nail.]

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Examples

Comments

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  • I think that

    "A short, sharp-pointed, large-headed nail, -- used in shoeing houses and for studding the soles of heavy shoes."

    should probably be

    "A short, sharp-pointed, large-headed nail, -- used in shoeing horses and for studding the soles of heavy shoes."

    One shoes HORSES, not HOUSES.

    November 1, 2011

  • Yet, one may readily purchase house slippers at any department store.

    November 1, 2011

  • My house has footings.

    November 2, 2011

  • BTW the warty ceramics is fugly.

    November 2, 2011

  • The houses are now unshod. Thanks!

    November 3, 2011

  • Hey bilby: some other uninspiring visual examples of bygone American glassware can be perused at depression glass, milk glass and vaseline glass. The white hobnail glass shown here isn't to my liking either. So-called Vaseline glass contains Uranium, which causes it to fluoresce under ultraviolet light.

    November 4, 2011