Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Hobnail

Hobnail , noun

[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
Collocations (1)
Hobnail liver (Medicine) , a disease in which the liver is shrunken, hard, and covered with projections like hobnails; one of the forms of cirrhosis of the liver.

Hobnail , transitive verb

To tread down roughly, as with hobnailed shoes.
Your rights and charters hobnailed into slush. — Tennyson