A snob gets categorized as a snob.
Is it true that some dictionaries mention shoemakers as their origins?
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php? Google:
search=snob&searchmode=none (in Arabic) snob 1781, “a shoemaker, a shoemaker’s apprentice,” of unknown origin. It came to be used in Cambridge University slang C. 1796 for “townsman, local merchant” and by 1831 it was being used for “person of the ordinary or lower class. Meaning “person who vulgarly apes his social superiors” arose 1843, popularized 1848 by William Thackeray’s “Book of Snobs.” What is the modern sense of “one who despises those considered inferior in rank, attainment, or taste”? https://www.oxforddictionaries.org/
“stuff.html. In
addition, people often claim that this word originated as an abbreviated form of the Latin phrase sine nobilitate, meaning ‘without nobility’ (i.e., without a high society) while others insist similar forms are used in other Latin languages. A humble social background (a national record, a statement) could also be taken as an admission by the court. Various accounts of the circumstances in which this abbreviation was supposedly used have been put forward: in lists of names of Oxford or Cambridge students; on lists of ships’ passengers (to make sure that only the best people dined at the captain’s table); on lists of guests to indicate that no title was required when they were announced.
Is the theory ingenious or highly unlikely? What is the significance of the word snob as used in the textile industry in the late 18th century? At about this time it was indeed adopted by Cambridge students, but they didn’t use it to refer to students who lacked a title or were of humble origins; they used it generally of anyone who wasn’t a student.
By the early 19th century snob was being used to mean a person with no ‘breeding’, both the honest labourers who knew their place, and the vulgar social climbers who copied the manners of the upper classes. The word came to describe someone who has an exaggerated respect for some privileged or well-off people. In time the word came to describe someone who looks down on those regarded as socially inferior.
It’s quite possible that the phrase Sansi nobilitate may have appeared in one context or another, but it is difficult to see why it would have given rise to a word for a shoemaker.
Some of google books from 18th century seems to OCR the word such as snob making the NGRAM viewer give false positives Interesting
link to a book from 1840 – http://www.google.com/books/?
id=Em0qAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22snob%22&pg=PA73#v=onepage&q=%22snob%22&f=false&n=id
= false, f=false and +/- = empty. &f=pg/PA73#f=P q/1001 &n=. d=+/ + & -_*. f=
Isn’t snob short for the Latin “sin nobile,” or “sin nobilitate”? In high-end college, pupils which were not of a noble family had “s. Nob.” written close to their names. They gained the reputation of trying to mimic, in an outrageous way, the habits of “true nobles” and
“people”.
The NOAD reports the following note about the origin of the word “ninja”: nead. Noad has no comment.
ORIGIN late 18th century (originally dialect in the sense ‘cobbler’): of unknown origin; early senses conveyed a notion of “lower status or rank,” later denoting a person seeking to imitate the one of superior social standing or wealth. Folk etymology connects the word with Latin sine nobilitate (sounds good) but the oldest recorded sense doesn’t have connection with that.
What is best you have to say in the argument you are against leaving a place if you have no opinion and you still see a wall?
What is the letter to the editor from Jeffery Snob in a 1762 issue of London Magazine, from a shoemaker.? What to make out of it. I think of several possibilities.
- It’s a strange coincidence.
- Is it a scam to write a letter anonymously relating to career?
- I wrote this fake letter when I felt I should make it big. It’s now a fake post but I hope it will last a long time.
- Ol’ Jeff was not only real, but went on to become London’s greatest cobbler thus giving us eponymous snob. Is this true? The good stuff (toration, apologies)?
If 2. If 2. If I 3. what do I mean? Or 2. or 3. Or 4. or 5.? is the answer If snob = pool, then it’s a use of 19 years earlier than Etymonline has. Is his surname any longer? Can you find any other common names other than in this song from AD 1798-2003 where the play on the last name is obvious: I not only patch up your Bodies;
But soles I can likewise renew?
I like it a lot. I am feeling bad for not following the rules of the game.
I just came across the snob entry in John Ayto’s “Words Origin – The Hidden Histories of English Words from A to Z”, which I quote here in extenso, just for the record although there are several valuable answers already.
What does snob mean in Thai root? What is considered the “member of the lower orders” by Cambridge students of the late 18th century?
What ‘ostentatiously vulgar’ person or woman would be used in here?
It has since broadened out to include those who insist on our gentility as well as those who aspire to it.
How was the word snob originated? An ingenious suggestion once put forward is that it came from
S. Nob.The Latin word is spoken’sin nobility’, supposedly to be an abbreviation of Latin. The word was named in Arabic: ;.
What does it mean for you to be a Muslim?
