hobnail

plural hobnails

1. A short nail with a thick head, typically used in boot soles.
2. obsoleteA yokel; a rustic.

   There lay Tom; hobnail Tom! a bacon-munching, reckless, beer-swilling animal! and yet a man …

   1859, George Meredith, chapter 9, in The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. A History of Father and Son. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC

   1 more example

   Next, the word Politician is not us'd to his maw, and therupon he plays the most notorious hobbihors, jesting and frisking in the luxury of his non-sense with such poor fetches to cog a laughter from us, that no antic hobnaile at a Morris, but is more hansomly facetious.

   1645 March 14 (Gregorian calendar), J[ohn] M[ilton], Colasterion: A Reply to a Nameles Answer against The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. […], [London?]: [s.n.], →OCLC

present singular third person hobnails · participle present hobnailing · participle past hobnailed · past hobnailed

1. To fit with hobnails.

   a machine for the hobnailing of shoes

2. archaictransitiveTo tread down roughly, as with hobnailed shoes.

   Your rights and charters hobnailed into slush.

   1875, Tennyson, Queen Mary