677: snob Oct 15, 2016

Sticklers, pedants, and prescriptivists don't care much for language-change, but it happens even for them. There are a few folk etymologies for the word, 'snob', including the idea that it comes from the Latin phrase, 'sine nobilitate' (without nobility), which does not connect with the dates and senses of the earliest uses, and also the idea that the word comes from the connection with noses (for more on Indo-European roots for sn- words, click here), but that doesn't match up either. The earliest usages for this word meant 'cobbler' and then was used to mean 'lower class'. The meaning we have today is fairly recent from when the word was applied to those who had low status but looked to imitate those more well-to-do.