'Snob' origins

[snopes]

Comment: I heard that the term "snob" was derived from "s. nob.", an abbreviation
of latin "sine nobilitate" (without nobility), marking a non-noble student
at the noble universities of Oxford or Cambridge. Supposedly the usage was
to form entries of non-noble students in a list where nobility was
prevalent.

I heard this being told by a professor of history, but of course that is
no claim for truth.

[Richard W]

The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Chambers and The Cassell Dictionary of Slang all agree that it used to be an (18th Century) word for "cobbler".

Cassell's says that the current meaning arose as Cambridge University slang -

c. 1793 as a description of a townsman as opposed to a university member. This may have been based on the original slang use [i.e. 'cobbler'], implying the desire of tradesmen to flatter custom out of the undergraduates.

Chambers Dictionary of Etymology basically agrees with Cassell's, saying the Cambridge sense of townsman arose "about 1796"; it continues:

... by 1831 use was broadened to include any person of the ordinary or lower classes of society of nineteenth-century England.

Thackeray wrote a series of articles in Punch called The Snob Papers or The Snobs of England (according to the Oxford Companion to English Literature), published as The Book of Snobs in 1848, which popularised the term.

The origin of snob as a slang term for shoemaker is unknown.

[Ieuan ab Arthur]

Hi All:

Just to add the last piece to the puzzle, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary,

... and by 1911 [snob] had its main modern sense of "one who despises those considered inferior in rank, attainment, or taste."

That's quite a change from its earlier meaning of,

... "person of the ordinary or lower classes."

Ta ra 'wan,

Ieuan "Snob Hill" ab Arthur

[A Turtle Named Mack]

Originally Posted by Ieuan ab Arthur

Hi All:

Just to add the last piece to the puzzle, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary,



That's quite a change from its earlier meaning of,



Ta ra 'wan,

Ieuan "Snob Hill" ab Arthur

I read an etymology recently, can;t remember where, that said that the more accurate usage is someone who is pretentious about their newly acquired status - essentially the stereotypical nouveau riche. That makes some sense with all these definitions above - the nobility despise them because they are not 'to the Manor born' and the less succeessful resent them for being arrogant, etc.