Snob


a person who imitates, cultivates, or slavishly admires social superiors and is condescending or overbearing to others.
a person who believes himself or herself an expert or connoisseur in a given field and is condescending toward or disdainful of those who hold other opinions or have different tastes regarding this field:
a musical snob.
Contemporary Examples

And before you think I’m some Chanel-only snob, I offer this advice as a fan of street and flea markets.
Gal With a Suitcase Jolie Hunt January 15, 2010

He was educated, like Fleming, at Eton, but unlike his creator, he was no snob.
Literary Bond Superior to Movie Version Allen Barra November 10, 2012

You write a lot about how you were a jerk or a snob when it came to comedy or film.
Patton Oswalt on Fighting Conservatives With Satire William O’Connor January 5, 2015

What a snob … Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college.
The Ultimate 2012 Quiz Michael Tomasky December 26, 2012

Watch as Jon Stewart schools him on the actual meaning of a “snob.”
‘The Artist’ Sweeps Oscars, Davy Jones Dies, J.Lo on the Alleged Nip Slip, and More Viral Videos The Daily Beast Video March 2, 2012

Historical Examples

There is nothing a snob hates so much as snobbery in another.
The Way of Ambition Robert Hichens

He who bullies those who are not in a position to resist may be a snob, but cannot be a gentleman.
Self-Help Samuel Smiles

I am far from being a snob, Archie, but Newport is really the loveliest place in America.
Blacksheep! Blacksheep! Meredith Nicholson

We are left with the uneasy impression that William is a snob.
Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 Various

While he was there he contributed to The snob, the name of which suggested to him a title in after years.
The Age of Tennyson Hugh Walker

noun

a person who strives to associate with those of higher social status and who behaves condescendingly to others Compare inverted snob
(as modifier): snob appeal

a person having similar pretensions with regard to his tastes, etc: an intellectual snob
n.

1781, “a shoemaker, a shoemaker’s apprentice,” of unknown origin. It came to be used in Cambridge University slang c.1796, often contemptuously, for “townsman, local merchant,” and passed then into literary use, where by 1831 it was being used for “person of the ordinary or lower classes.” Meaning “person who vulgarly apes his social superiors” is by 1843, popularized 1848 by William Thackeray’s “Book of Snobs.” The meaning later broadened to include those who insist on their gentility, in addition to those who merely aspire to it, and by 1911 the word had its main modern sense of “one who despises those considered inferior in rank, attainment, or taste.”

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