Origin and history of cobalt

whitish metal element, 1755, the name was coined in 1754 by Swedish mineralogist Axel von Cronstedt (1722-1765) from shortening of Swedish kopparnickel "copper-colored ore" (from which it was first obtained), a half-translation of German Kupfernickel, literally "copper goblin" from Kupfer (see copper) + Nickel "goblin, rascal, fool" (a pet form of masc. proper name Nikolaus.)

Jacob Grimm suggests this is from the source of nixie (and compare pumpernickel). Later German sources (Kluge, etc.) connect the German word to St. Nicholas and the customs surrounding his day in Germany (for which see Krampus). Also compare English Old Nick "the devil;" for which see Nick). Yet the earliest uses of the word are only for a fool or a contemptible person, not a supernatural creature. According to OED (2nd ed., 1989), the ore was so called by miners because it looked like copper but yielded none. Compare fool's gold meaning "iron pyrite."

The meaning "coin made partly of nickel" is from 1857, when the U.S. introduced one-cent coins made of nickel to replace the old bulky copper pennies. The application to the five-cent piece (originally one part nickel, three parts copper) is from 1883; silver half-dimes served for this in the earlier currency.

To nickel-and-dime (someone) "make or keep (someone) poor by accumulation of trifling expenses," is by from 1964 (nickels and dimes "very small amounts of money" is attested from 1893).

early 14c., "a devil, incubus, mischievous and ugly fairy," from Norman French gobelin (12c., as Medieval Latin Gobelinus, the name of a spirit haunting the region of Evreux, in chronicle of Ordericus Vitalis), of uncertain origin; said to be unrelated to German kobold (see cobalt), or from Medieval Latin cabalus, from Greek kobalos "impudent rogue, knave," kobaloi "wicked spirits invoked by rogues," of unknown origin. Another suggestion is that it is a diminutive of the proper name Gobel.

Though French gobelin was not recorded until almost 250 years after appearance of the English term, it is mentioned in the Medieval Latin text of the 1100's, and few people who believed in folk magic used Medieval Latin. [Barnhart]

Thou schalt not drede of an arowe fliynge in the dai, of a gobelyn goynge in derknessis [Psalm xci.5 in the later Wycliffe Bible, late 14c.]