Also 8 jobb. [f. JOB sb.2]
1. intr. To do jobs or odd pieces of work; to do piece-work, work by the piece.
1694. Motteux, Rabelais, IV. Prol. By his Hatchet he earn’d many a fair Penny of the … Log-Merchants, among whom he went a Jobbing.
c. 1820. Mrs. Sherwood, Penny Tract, 7, in Houlston Juvenile Tracts. Cutting fruit-trees, and jobbing about in different gardens.
1825. Hone, Every-day Bk., I. 873. He had worked … and still jobbed about.
2. trans. Chiefly in colloq. phr. that job’s jobbed.
1840. Marryat, Poor Jack, xix. That job’s jobbed, as the saying is.
1847. De Quincey, Secret Societies, Wks. 1863, VI. 240. ‘Then,’ said Pyrrhus, ‘next we go for Macedon; and after that job’s jobbed, next, of course, for Greece.’
1864. Webster, s.v., To job work.
3. To let out (a large piece of work) in separate portions to different contractors or workmen.
1882. in Ogilvie.
4. To hire (less usually, to let out on hire) for a particular job, or for a definite time (a horse, carriage, etc.). Also absol., and in phr. to job it.
1786. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Birthday Ode, xliv. Whitbread, d’ye keep a coach, or job one, pray? Job, job, that’s cheapest; yes, that’s best, that’s best.
1829. Hood, Epping H., xxxi. Some had horses of their own, And some were forced to job it.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, xlviii. She went to the livery-man from whom she jobbed her carriage.
1861. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, III. 358/1. The masters of whom I have spoken will job a carriage duly emblazoned … with the proper armorial bearings … and job coachmen and grooms as well. Ibid. Very few noblemen at present bring their carriage-horses to town;… they nearly all job, as it is invariably called.
5. To let or deal with for profit.
1726. in Swift’s Corr., Wks. 1841, II. 583/2. Your interest with me … procured Dr. Ellwood the use of that chamber, not the power to job it.
1812. Scott, Lett. to Southey, 4 June, in Lockhart. The clergy … have a strange disposition to job away among themselves the rewards of literature.
1838. Lytton, Alice, II. iii. These old ruins are my property, and are not to be jobbed out to the insolence of public curiosity.
6. To buy and sell (stock or goods) as a broker; to deal with as a middleman; to buy from one person and sell to another at a profit.
1670. [implied in JOBBER2 3].
1711. J. Dennis, Pub. Spirit, 29. Stocks are jobb’d by People in the City, who have no real Stock but their Impudence.
1864. Webster, s.v., To job goods.
1890. Walt Whitman, in Pall Mall Gaz., 26 Aug., 7/2. The Essays are remarkably fine specimens of type, paper, and press-work—Chapman and Hall their English publishers—and jobb’d here by Scribners, New York.
b. intr. To buy and sell stock; to deal or speculate in stocks.
1721–2. Amherst, Terræ Filius, No. 12 (1754), 59. Those persons, who could not raise money enough … jobb’d in these little bubbles.
1781. Justamond, Priv. Life Lewis XV., I. 84. This Nobleman had jobbed to advantage in the Quincampoix-street.
1809. R. Langford, Introd. Trade, 116. If he has lost … certain sums … in … jobbing in the funds.
1890. Spectator, 15 Nov., 675/2. The Bourses of the world have begun to job in currency, and currency with which democracies can tamper.
7. intr. To turn a public office or service, or a position of trust, improperly to private or party advantage; to practise jobbery.
1732. Pope, Ep. Bathurst, 141. Statesman and Patriot ply alike the stocks,… And Judges job, and Bishops bite the town.
1826. Scott, Jrnl., 20 Jan. I daresay he jobs, as all other people of consequence do, in elections and so forth.
1844. P. Harwood, Hist. Irish Rebell., 47, note. He found it necessary to bribe and job on a larger scale than the boldest of his predecessors.
1869. Spectator, 17 April, 469/2. If left unfettered he would job.
8. trans. To make a ‘job’ of (JOB sb.2 3, 4 b); to deal with in some way; esp. to deal with corruptly for private gain or advantage.
1825. Scott, Fam. Lett., 25 Aug. (1894), II. xxiii. 344. The local magistrates … seem to have jobb’d the matter sadly.
1881. Blackmore, Christowell, ix. He meant to do his duty to his own kin, instead of founding charities to be jobbed by aliens.
1889. Spectator, 28 Sept., 391/2. They would regard this power as certain to be jobbed, and will accordingly never give it.
b. To give away by jobbery: to get (a person) into some position by jobbery.
1720. Ramsay, Wealth, 50. How … these … Have jobb’d themselves into sae high a state.
1849. Tait’s Mag., XVI. 141/2. The Colonial Office had all but jobbed away Vancouver’s Island.
1864. Sala, in Daily Tel., 30 Sept., 5/4. The nominee may have been jobbed into the place to serve some dirty purpose of political intrigue.
1899. Daily News, 20 July, 7/2. M. Marchessou was then jobbed into the post of director of the deaf and dumb asylum of Bordeaux.
9. To put off by artifice: cf. FOB off.
1876. J. Weiss, Wit, Hum. & Shaks., xi. 379. When you try jauntily to job off suspicion before other persons, the cheek grows pale with dread of being contradicted.
1887. Pall Mall Gaz., 23 Aug., 6/1. The policy of Scotland-yard, he [Mr. Pickersgill] said, was to ‘job off’ complaints made against the police.
