hobnail

hob +‎ nail. The oldest attestation is in William Shakespeare, but he likely did not coin the term.[1]

hobnail (plural hobnails)

1. A short nail with a thick head, typically used in boot soles.
2. (obsolete) A yokel; a rustic.
   • 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:

     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.

   • 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, →OCLC:

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

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hobnail (third-person singular simple present hobnails, present participle hobnailing, simple past and past participle hobnailed)

1. To fit with hobnails.

   a machine for the hobnailing of shoes

2. (transitive, archaic) To tread down roughly, as with hobnailed shoes.
   • 1875, Tennyson, Queen Mary:

     Your rights and charters hobnailed into slush.

• hobnail on Wikipedia.Wikipedia