or hob nob, verb. (old).—1. To invite to drink; to clink glasses.
1756. FOOTE, The Englishman returned from Paris, i. 1. With, perhaps, an occasional interruption of ‘Here’s to you, friends’; ‘HOB OR NOB’; ‘Your love and mine.’
1759. J. TOWNLEY, High Life below Stairs, ii., 1. Duke. Lady Charlotte, HOB OR NOB! Lady Char. Done, my lord; in Burgundy, if you please.
1772. R. GRAVES, The Spiritual Quixote, bk. VIII. ch. xxi. (new Ed., 1808). Having drunk HOB-OR-NOB with a young Lady, in whose eyes he wished to appear a man of consequence; he hurried out into the summer-house.
1823. BADCOCK (‘Jon Bee’), Dictionary of the Turf, etc., s.v. HOB NOB—two persons pledging each other in a glass.
1836. HORACE SMITH, Works, ‘Address to a Mummy.’
| Perchance that very hand, now pinion’d flat, | |
| Has HOB-A-NOB’D with Pharaoh, glass to glass. |
1849. THACKERAY, Pendennis, ch. xxx. He would have liked to HOB AND NOB with celebrated pick-pockets, or drink a pot of ale with a company of burglars and cracksmen.
1886. R. L. STEVENSON, Kidnapped, p. 68. So the pair sat down and HOB-A-NOBBED.
2. (old).—To give or take; to hit or miss at random. [Saxon, habban, to have; nabban, not to have.]
1577–87. HOLINSHED, Chronicles of Englande, Scotlande, and Irelande (1807), p. 317. The citizens in their rage shot HABBE OR NABBE (hit or miss) at random.
1602. SHAKESPEARE, Twelfth Night, iii. 4. HOB-NOB is his word, give ’t or take ’t.
1615. HARINGTON, Epigrams, iv.
| Not of Iack Straw, with his rebellious crew, | |
| That set King, Realme, and Lawes at HAB OR NAB. |
1673. The Character of a Quack Astrologer. He writes of the weather HAB NAB, and as the toy takes him, chequers the year with foul and fair.
3. (colloquial).—To be on terms of close intimacy; to consort familiarly together.
1870. S. L. CLEMENS (‘Mark Twain’), The Innocents Abroad, ch. i. They were to HOB-NOB with nobility and hold friendly converse with kings and princes.
1892. HUME NISBET, The Bushranger’s Sweetheart, p. 109. I had HOB-NOBBED for the last two hours with the most notorious bushranger in the colony.
1892. A. K. GREEN, Cynthia Wakeham’s Money, p. 5. Each tree looks like a spectre HOB-NOBBING with its neighbour.
