Emily Dickinson Lexicon

COP'PLE-STONES, n.

Lumps and fragments of stone broke from the adjacent cliffs, rounded by being bowled and tumbled to and again by the action of water. – Johnson. Woodward. In New England, we pronounce this word cobble, cobble-stones, and if the word is a diminutive of cob, cop, a head, or cub, a heap, we follow the Welsh cob, as the English do, the same word, cop, in the Saxon dialect. We apply the word to small round stones, from the size of an inch or two, to five or six inches or more, in diameter, wherever they may be found.