hobnob

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“
Two medicine-men are supposed always to wish for a chance to hobnob, and we'll put it on that score.

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Definitions (10)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. intransitive verb To associate familiarly: hobnobs with the executives.
  2. Word History
    Hobnobbing with our social betters can be a hit-or-miss proposition, a fact that has an etymological justification. The verb hobnob originally meant "to drink together” and occurred as a varying phrase, hob or nob, hob-a-nob, or hob and nob, the first of which is recorded in 1763. This phrasal form reflects the origins of the verb in similar phrases that were used when two people toasted each other. The phrases were probably so used because hob is a variant of hab and nob of nab, which are probably forms of have and its negative. In Middle English, for example, one finds the forms habbe, "to have,” and nabbe, "not to have.” Hab or nab, or simply hab nab, thus meant "get or lose, hit or miss,” and the variant hob-nob also meant "hit or miss.” Used in the drinking phrase, hob or nob probably meant "give or take”; from a drinking situation hob nob spread to other forms of chumminess.

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Examples (41)

  • The Sun Chronicle's circulation area includes 21 boys 'and girls' varsity teams that share membership in the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, hailing from six different leagues, yet they all find a common bond when they walk into our photo studio and can hobnob with players whom they might not face in person, but know from the coverage of their games in the newspaper. —  News from www.thesunchronicle.com
  • Politicians often use golf as a tool to raise campaign cash and to hobnob with constituents and contributors.
  • I. A representatives such as Yours Truly attend to find out the Big Picture, hobnob with other guilds and unions, and generally take care of any business needed to be done with the high potentates of the organization. —  TAG Blog
  • Naïve or simply persistent, Mr. Quest then asked whether any of the bankers, politicians and assorted bigshots will simply say, "I'm sorry," as they hobnob with the world's economic elite at Davos. —  pfblogs.org: The Ad-Free Personal Finance Blogs Aggregator
  • They run as populists, and then they hobnob with the rich. —  Faultline USA
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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. From the phrase (drink) hob or nob, (toast) one another alternately, from obsolete and dialectal hab nab, have or have not : probably Middle English habbe, have; see have + Middle English nabbe (contraction of ne habbe, have not : Old English ne, not; see not + habbe, have).

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Var. of habnab: see habnab, hab-or-nab.
  2. from hobnob, adv.
 

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/ˈhɑbˈnɑb/
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