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For the warship, see HMS Nabob; for the archiver program, NABOB
For the Canadian coffee brand, see Nabob (coffee)
In colloquial usage in English (since 1612), adopted in other Western languages, the corrupted form of the Indian title Nawab. It was never officially awarded as such, but came about because it was homophonous with the Bengali pronunciation. It was erroneously used instead of Nawab but, also, since 1764, came to refer to commoners: a merchant-leader of high social status and wealth or a capitalist.
It can also be used metaphorically for people who have a grandiose style or manner (including of speech) as in Spiro Agnew's famous dismissal of the press as "nattering nabobs of negativism".
See also Naybob
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