Etymology From corn + cob. The Internet slang sense emerged from a 2011 absurdist tweet by Weird Twitter personality dril in which a man furiously denies being owned as he transforms into a corncob.
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The central cylindrical core of an ear of corn (maize) on which the kernels are attached in rows.
London is like a shelled corncob on the Derby day, and there is not a clerk who could raise the money to hire a saddle with an old hack under it that can sit down on his office-stool the next day without wincing.1857–1858, Oliver Wendell Holmes [Sr.], chapter I, in The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, Boston, Mass.: Phillips, Sampson and Company, published 1858, →OCLC, page 23:
Six years of persistent research at the Bureau of Chemistry of the Department of Agriculture, has resulted in establishing the fact that a number of interesting and useful by-products can be derived from the humble corncob.1922, “Corncob Seen as Source of New Industry”, in Henry Haven Windsor, editor, Popular Mechanics, volume XXXVIII, page 765:
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He bit into a corncob, and Chisom watched him munch with his mouth open, his jaws working the corn like a mini grinding machine.2009, Chika Unigwe, On Black Sisters Street, Random House,, →ISBN, page 32:
Etymology From corn + cob. The Internet slang sense emerged from a 2011 absurdist tweet by Weird Twitter personality dril in which a man furiously denies being owned as he transforms into a corncob.
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Of turbines and rotor blades To disintegrate by the blades becoming severed from the axis
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Internet, US To defeat (someone) who then refuses to admit defeat.
“Do you enjoy being corncobbed?”2017 July 18, Jeremy Gordon, “CNN’s Most Cynical Pundit Got Mercilessly Owned in a Reddit AMA”, in SPIN:
Trump had lost but was denying that this was the case. He had been corncobbed.2017 September 4, Amelia Tait, “The internet dictionary: what does it mean to be corncobbed?”, in The New Statesmen:
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Distracted cops, rude asteroids and the corncobbing of Andrew Koenig2021, Daniel Hill, "The Big Mad: Missed Connections", Riverfront Times, 24 March 2021 - 30 March 2021, page 11