17SEP2009

Hobnob (verb)

Pronunciation ['hahb-nahb]

Definition: To take turns drinking to or buying drinks for each other; to drink together; to associate with someone of a higher social class.

Usage: Someone who hobnobs is a hobnobber and his behavior may be characterized as hobnobbery. The hyphen, which originally marked the spot where a conjunction ("and" or "or") once stood, is usually omitted now.

Suggested Usage: Keep in mind that the basic meaning of today's word (currently) is to drink together, "Let's go to the pub this weekend; we'll hobnob and watch some football on TV together." The implication is that those involved will take turns buying the drinks. Probably because it rhymes with "snob," the word has taken a different turn in the US, referring to merely associating with someone, but usually someone of higher social register: "Westerbrooke doesn't like the opera, he just hobnobs there with the politically high and snooty."

Etymology: Today's word comes from the adverb phrase (to drink) hob or nob "to toast one another alternately" (also "hob and nob" and "hob-a-nob"). From dialectal hab or nab "have or have not" when "a" was pronounced [ah] as [o] is now. These two derived from habbe "have" and n'abbe, a contraction of ne habbe "not have". In 1601 the phrase meant "give and take" to Shakespeare, who wrote in 'Twelfth Night' (III. iv. 262), "His incensement…is so implacable, that satisfaction can be none, but by pangs of death and sepulcher: Hob, nob, is his word: giv't or take't." Toasting back and forth is a kind of given-and-take and from there the sense "chumming around with" is but a short hop and a skip.