1. Pet form of Bob, familiar perversion of Robert.
2. [Hence probably in allusion to the name of Mr. (afterwards Sir) Robert Peel, who was Home Secretary when the new Metropolitan Police Act was passed in 1828.] A slang nickname for a policeman. See also PEELER.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 16/1 (Hoppe). He could muzzle half a dozen bobbies before breakfast.
1877. Besant & Rice, Son of Vulc., II. xxiii. 367. [He] might have been killed only that the bobbies interfered.
1884. L. J. Jennings, in Croker Papers, II. xiv. 17. Frequently when the constables made their appearance … they were hooted and insulted, mobs following them crying out ‘crusher,’ ‘raw lobster,’ ‘Bobbies,’ and ‘Peelers.’
