■ noun a person who has an exaggerated respect for high social position or wealth and who looks down on those regarded as socially inferior.
↘a person with a similar respect for tastes considered superior in a particular area: a wine ~.
Derivatives
~bery noun ( plural ~beries ).
~bism noun
~by adjective ( ~bier , ~biest ).
Word History
When it first appeared, as a dialect word in the late 18th century, ~ meant 'cobbler'. It next surfaced as a Cambridge University slang term for a non-member of the university, and then came to refer to any ordinary person lacking high rank or status. The main modern sense, of a person who looks down on those regarded as socially inferior, is first recorded in 1848, in The Book of Snobs by William Makepeace Thackeray. Folk etymology connects ~ with the Latin phrase sine nobilitate 'without nobility', but there is no convincing evidence for this.