Definition of "hobnail"

hobnail

noun
plural hobnails
1. A short nail with a thick head, typically used in boot soles.
2. (obsolete) A yokel; a rustic.
  Quotations
  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.]
  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. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall
verb
third-person singular simple present hobnails, present participle hobnailing, simple past and past participle hobnailed
1. To fit with hobnails.
2. (transitive, archaic) To tread down roughly, as with hobnailed shoes.
  Quotations
  Your rights and charters hobnailed into slush.
  1875, Tennyson, Queen Mary