The Stob Garden: Boston Among the Stobs

Stob

n. Chiefly Southern U.S.

A short straight piece of wood, such as a stake.

[Middle English, stump, variant of stubbe, stub; see stub.]

Regional Note: The Southern word stob means a short straight stick of wood: "Jim Rozier's skill with a piece of iron and a hardwood stob sets up a vibration in the earth that Sopchoppy worms find extremely disagreeable" (Charles Kuralt). Related to stub and stubby, stob is one of numerous Indo-European cognates, for example, Greek stupos,meaning "stump (of a tree or branch)." In Middle English stob seems to have been a variant spelling of stub, with one of its meanings being "the amputated stump of a human limb." However, the word has chiefly denoted a short piece of wood, such as "a small post or stake or stump of a shrub, [and is] commonly so used in many, if not all, parts of the [American] South" (Charles F. Smith).

The Stob Garden

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Boston Among the Stobs

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