subs. (Anglo-Indian: now colloquial).—1. See early quots.; and (2) a rich man. Hence NABOBBERY = the class of nabobs.
1612. R. COVERTE, A True and Almost Incredible Report of an Englishman that … Travelled by Land through Many Unknowne Kingdomes and Great Cities, 36. An Earle is called a NAWBOB.
1625. PURCHAS, Pilgrims, I., iv., 467. The NABOB with fifty or 60 thousand people in his campe.
1665. SIR T. HERBERT, A Relation of Some Yeares Travaile … into Afrique and the greater Asia (1677), 99. Nobleman, NABOB.
1764. WALPOLE, Letters (1857), iv., 222. Mogul Pitt and NABOB Bute.
1772. FOOTE, The Nabob [Title].
1784. BURKE on Fox’s East India Bill [Works (1852), III., 506]. He that goes out an insignificant boy, in a few years returns a great NABOB.
1786. HANNAH MORE, Florio, 272.
| Before our tottering Castles fall, | |
| And swarming NABOBS seize on all! |
d. 1796. BURNS, Election Ballads, III.
| But as to his fine NABOB fortune, | |
| We’ll e’en let this subject alane. | |
| Ibid., ‘Ded. to G. H.’ 2. | |
| An’ there will be rich brother NABOBS, | |
| Though NABOBS, yet men of the first. |
1815. SCOTT, Guy Mannering, xix. (1852), 170. He resolved, therefore, to place himself upon the footing of a country gentleman of easy fortune, without assuming … any of the faste which was then considered as characteristic of a NABOB.
1834. Baboo, I., vii., 118. Though no king, I wait for no man, not even for a NUWAB.
1848. THACKERAY, Vanity Fair (1867), i. They say all Indian NABOBS are enormously rich.
1852. M. W. SAVAGE, Reuben Medlicott, II. x. [1864]. ‘How particularly great he is to-night; he reminds me of a NABOB!’ ‘NABOBBERY itself,’ said Hyacinth.
1862. THACKERAY, The Adventures of Philip, xiv. The days of NABOBS are long over, and the General had come back … with only very small means for the support of a great family.
1872. E. BRADDON, Life in India, i., 4. The English flag was raised over the kingdom once ruled by Mogul, Rajah, and NUWAUB.
1878. LECKY, A History of England in the Eighteenth Century, xiii. The Indian adventurer, or, as he was popularly called, the NABOB, was now a conspicuous … figure in Parliament.
