Now only Sc. and dial. Also 7–9 stobb. [Partly a variant (sometimes merely graphic), partly a cognate, of STUB sb.1, q.v. for the etymology. (It seems impossible accurately to separate the two words, as they appear always to have been to a great extent synonymous; the examples written with o are therefore placed here, even when it is not unlikely that they properly belong to STUB sb.1) Cf. STAB sb.2]
† 1. A stump, portion remaining after mutilation.
c. 1420. Chron. Vilod., 4326. Bot þe flesshe from þe stobbus of his lymus was clene a-way.
b. fig. (See quot.)
1825. Brockett, N. C. Gloss., Stob,… metaphorically,… an ignorant, stupid fellow.
2. A stick, a twig broken off.
1321. Charter in Verse (late copy), With grene ant wilde, stob ant stokke.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, XI. ii. 18. Bund with the syonys or the twyistis sle Of small rammell or stobis of aikin tre [L. virgis et vimine querno].
1827. W. Tennant, Papistry Storm’d, 170. Sae stanes, stobs, sticks, come peltin’ aff Dean Annan.
3. A stake; a post; also a gibbet. † Rogue stob, a whipping-post.
1530. Lyndesay, Test. Papyngo, 169. Boreas blew one blast,… Quhilk … blew hir … Doun to the ground,… Vpon ane stob scho lychtit, on hir breist; The blude ruschit out. Ibid. (1552), Monarche, I. 1538. Quhalis and Monstouris of the seis Stickit on stobbis, amang the treis.
1550. Abstr. Protocols Town Clerks Glasgow (1894), I. 18. The twa biggit howssis nixt adjacent thairto upone the sammyn syide gangand to the lyne stobbis.
1626. in R. Welford, Hist. Newcastle (1887), III. 276. Paid James Coats for making clasps to the rogue stob, 1s. 2d.
a. 1670. Spalding, Troub. Chas. I. (Bannatyne Club), I. 44. He was taken and headed, and his right hand sett upon ane stob.
1795. Statist. Acc. Scot., XV. 321. The different articles made from these woods are sold at the following prices on the spot: stobs at 4s. the hundred, four feet long; [etc.].
1842. J. Aiton, Dom. Econ. (1857), 268. Almost every boy knows how to knock up a rabbit hutch…. A few stobs, boards, and nails, is all that is required.
1860–2. Trans. Tyneside Field Club, V. 90 (E.D.D.). In former times, a pilgrimage was sometimes made … to Winter’s Stob, or gibbet, for a piece of the wood to rub the tooth with in toothache.
1882. Trans. Glasgow Archaeol. Soc., II. II. 129. Stobs had been inserted in the bank of the river.
1883. C. F. Smith, Southernisms, in Trans. Amer. Philol. Soc., 53. Stob, ‘a small post or stake or stump of a shrub,’ commonly so used in many, if not all, parts of the South.
1893. T. N. Page, In Ole Virginia, 145. A few hens loitering about the new hen-house … and a runty pig tied to a ‘stob,’ were the only signs of thrift.
† b. (To have or hold) stob and stake: to hold property (in a place). Obs.
1489. Extracts Burgh Rec. Edin. (1869), I. 57. Hafand nother stob nor stake within this towne.
1529. Extracts Rec. Convent. Burghs Scot. (1870), I. 510. That tha cum and duell within the burgh and hald the stob and stack within the same.
1596. Extracts Aberd. Reg. (1848), II. 133. All burgessis of gild … sall dwell,… hauld stob and stack, fyre and flett, within the burghs quhair thay are frie.
† c. Every stob: the whole of a building. Obs.
1716. Wodrow’s Corr. (1843), II. 137. His mother … has the mill in farming, where every stob was burnt.
† 4. A short thick flail. Obs.
1496. Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scot., I. 295. Item, for iije stobbis to the vyralis of the cartis, vs. iiijd.
1532–3. Durham Househ. Bk. (Surtees), 160. Pro 100 stobbys, pro molendino de Hessylden, 4d.
5. A thorn; a prickle; a splinter.
1637. Rutherford, Lett. to Meine (1664), 167. Lest a stob strike up in your foot, and cause you to halt all your dayes.
1851. W. Anderson, Rhymes (1867), 26 (E.D.D.). Pickin stobs frae laddies’ feet.
6. A thatch-peg.
1837. Finchale Priory Charters, etc. (Surtees), p. ccccl. The wooden pins or stobs used in fastening thatch to the roof of a building.
1844. H. Stephens, Bk. Farm, III. 1097. There are still other modes of thatching stacks, such as sticking in handfuls of straw … and keeping them down with stobs of willow.
7. A saddlers’ awl. Cf. stab-awl, STAB sb.1 4.
1872. N. & Q., Ser. IV. IX. 476. The ‘brog,’ a small boring instrument, is in Scotland sometimes called ‘a borin stob.’
1881. Times, 4 Jan., 11/4. The man … said Cruickshank, a saddler, had deliberately stabbed him with a ‘stob’ or awl.
8. Coal-mining. (See quot.)
1883. Gresley, Gloss. Coal-mining, 241. Stobb, a long steel wedge used in bringing down coal after it has been holed.
9. attrib. and Comb.: stob-feather (see quot.); stob-mill, a windmill pivoted upon a central post; stob-nail, = sense 4; stob-net, a fishing net supported on stakes; stob-pin, = sense 4; stob-thatch, roofing consisting of broom or brushwood laid across the rafters; also attrib.; hence stob-thatched adj.
1825. Brockett, N. C. Gloss., *Stob-feathers, the short unfledged feathers that remain on a fowl after it has been plucked.
1882. Archæol. Æliana, Ser. II. IX. 20. *Stob-mill of the antique mould.
1884. Newcastle Daily Chron., 28 Aug., 4. An old stob-mill … looks over the mural defences of Newcastle.
1728. Extracts Burgh Rec. Glasgow (1909), 303. A late method of fixing the iron bands to the trades of carts by square headed *stob naills.
1806. Morison, Decis., XXXIII. 14283. Salmon fishing in the river Leven, by means of *stob-nets.
1571. Wills & Inv. N. C. (Surtees, 1835), 362. iiijm *stob pynnes iiijs.
c. 1748. Ballad, in D. Mitchell, Hist. Montrose (1866), 76. The roofs were made o’ auld *stob thack, The wa’s o’ plastered fir.
1888. D. Grant, Scotch Stories, 29. The dwellin’-hoose o’ Strypeside [was] a canty stob-thack but-an’-ben.
1792. Statist. Acc. Scot., II. 534. A very few of them have been *stob-thatched, or covered with a deep coat of straw.
1871. W. Alexander, Johnny Gibb (1873), 197. His cosy ‘stob-thacket’ house.
