snob [L18th] There is a long-standing belief that snob has some connection with Latin sine nobilitate ‘without nobility’, abbreviated to s-nob, which then became snob. It is an ingenious theory but highly unlikely, as a snob was first recorded in the late 18th century as a shoemaker or cobbler. The word soon came to be used for any person of humble status or rank—Cambridge undergraduates used the term to mean ‘someone from the town, not a member of the university’, and this in turn led to the broader sense ‘a lower-class person, or a person lacking in good breeding, or good taste’. In time the word came to describe someone who seeks to imitate or give exaggerated respect to people they perceive as superior in social standing or wealth.