The Cobbetts
Early-attested site in the Parish of Ewhurst
Historical Forms
- Cobbats 1518–29 ECP
- Cobbettes 1533–8 ib
Etymology
The Cobbetts (6″) is Cobbats 1518–29 ECP, Cobbettes 1533–8 ib.There are various examples of cobbet (t )s as a farm- or field-name in Surrey, and doubtless some of them, like Cobbett Hill in Ash supra 137 involve a personal name Cobate or Cobbet , but such field-names as Cobett in Byfleet (1470Ct ) and Cobbett in Weybridge (1548LRMB ) suggest the existence also of a significant word cobbet (t ), which may in its turn be the source of at least some of the examples of Cobbet (t ) used as a surname. The natural thing is to start from an element cob , but that word is used in a multiplicity of senses (v. NED, EDD), and its etymological and semantic development is obscure. Wallenberg (KPN 244) tries to make a case for an OE cobba , 'hill,' and quotes in support ModEng cob (evidenced from 1420) 'something rounded or forming a roundish lump, a head or top,' but the 1420 example in the NED is one of cobbe used in a colloquial sense 'a big or important man,' and is irrelevant to the matter, and though cob is used from the 16th century onwards of various rounded things, no single example has so far been found of cob used of a hill or any topographical feature. One of the uses of cob is for a rounded nut, and it may be that that word was in Surrey extended to a tree bearing such nuts. EDD s. v. cob 17 notes that it is used in Surrey of the horse-chestnut tree. It may be that cobbet is a derivative of this word cob , denoting a small group of such trees with the common collective et -suffix, for which v. infra 358–9.