a. [f. SNOB sb.1 3.]
1. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a snob.
1840. Dickens, Old C. Shop, lvi. This form of inquiry he held to be of disrespectful and snobbish tendency.
1846. Thackeray, Snob Papers, Wks. 1886, XXIV. 332. I can conceive nothing more dangerous, insolent—Snobbish, in a word—than such an opposition.
1854. Illustr. Lond. News, 8 July, 7/2. The snobbish display of plush breeches.
1873. Hamerton, Intell. Life, VII. iii. 242. You will not suspect me of a snobbish desire to pay compliments to royalty.
absol. 1848. Thackeray, Bk. Snobs, Pref. It is Beautiful to study even the Snobbish; to track Snobs through history.
Comb. 1891. E. Kinglake, Australian, 144. It is doubtless not pleasant for the snobbish-minded man … to remember an origin of the kind.
2. Having the character of a snob.
1849. Saxe, Poems, Proud Miss M‘Bride, xv. Depend upon it, my snobbish friend, Your family thread you can’t ascend.
1863. W. Phillips, Speeches, xv. 325. Snobbish sons of fathers lately rich.
1885. Spectator, 30 May, 714/2. Julian is … vain, cowardly, snobbish, and untrustworthy.
Hence Snobbishly adv.
1848. Thackeray, Bk. Snobs, iii. It encourages the commoner to be snobbishly mean.
1892. Zangwill, Bow Mystery, iv. 51. One whom he seems snobbishly anxious to claim as a friend.
