If you use dict to look up the word "cobbler" with a "standard" set of dictionaries installed, you’ll get a GCIDE definition and the following Wordnet definition:
cobbler (n)
- a person who makes or repairs shoes [syn: {shoemaker}]
- tall sweetened iced drink of wine or liquor with fruit
- made of fruit with rich biscuit dough usually only on top of the fruit [syn: {deep-dish pie}]
Normally, if you misspell a word or try to look up the plural form of a noun, dict will suggest the correct word. However, if you look up "cobblers" you get:
cobblers (n)
- nonsense; "I think that is a load of cobblers"
- a man’s testicles (from Cockney rhyming slang: cobbler’s awl rhymes with ball)
It’s not clear to me whether this was non-graceful failure or even failure at all. It is clear that it was not what I was looking for. An educational experience nonetheless.
Not a failure at all. Cobblers is good English word meaning exactly those definitions. Often used to tell someone there ideas are not the best in the world or that they are telling stories ;-)
It probably is a failure, the two are certainly related.
I would like to point out a missing definition from the culinary world, where a cobbler is thick pastry/dough dumpling, placed on top of the filling as a lazy crust.
As a type of dumpling, they are also clearly related to the plural definition.