Hob"nail` (?), n. [1st hob + nail.] 1. A short, sharp-pointed, large- headed nail, -- used in shoeing houses and for studding the soles of heavy shoes.

2. A clownish person; a rustic. Milton.

Hobnail liver(Med.), a disease in which the liver is shrunken, hard, and covered with projections like hobnails; one of the forms of cirrhosis of the liver.

Hob"nail`, v. t. To tread down roughly, as with hobnailed shoes.

Your rights and charters hobnailed into slush.

Tennyson.

HOBNAIL. A country clodhopper: from the shoes of country
farmers and ploughmen being commonly stuck full of
hob-nails, and even often clouted, or tipped with iron.
The Devil ran over his face with hobnails in his shoes;
said of one pitted With the small pox.