nouns - Etymology of "snob"

Some dictionaries mention an origin involving shoemakers... But I can't say the link is straightforward, really.

Answer

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=snob&searchmode=none

snob 1781, "a shoemaker, a shoemaker's apprentice," of unknown origin. It came to be used in Cambridge University slang c.1796 for "townsman, local merchant," and by 1831 it was being used for "person of the ordinary or lower classes." Meaning "person who vulgarly apes his social superiors" arose 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 had its main modern sense of "one who despises those considered inferior in rank, attainment, or taste."

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/page/originsnob

People often claim that this word originated as an abbreviated form of the Latin phrase sine nobilitate, meaning 'without nobility' (i.e. 'of a humble social background'). Various accounts of the circumstances in which this abbreviation was supposedly used have been put forward: on lists of names of Oxford or Cambridge students; on lists of ships' passengers (to make sure that only the best people dined at the captain's table); on lists of guests to indicate that no title was required when they were announced.

The theory is ingenious but highly unlikely. The word snob is first recorded in the late 18th century as a term for a shoemaker or his apprentice. At about this time it was indeed adopted by Cambridge students, but they didn't use it to refer to students who lacked a title or were of humble origins; they used it generally of anyone who was not a student.

By the early 19th century snob was being used to mean a person with no 'breeding', both the honest labourers who knew their place, and the vulgar social climbers who copied the manners of the upper classes. In time the word came to describe someone with an exaggerated respect for high social position or wealth who looks down on those regarded as socially inferior.

It's quite possible that the phrase sine nobilitate may have appeared in one context or another, but it is difficult to see why it would have given rise to a word for a shoemaker.

PS: many of google books from 18th century seems to OCR the word such as snob making the NGRAM viewer give false positives

Interesting link to a book from 1840 -

http://books.google.com/books?id=Em0qAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22snob%22&pg=PA73#v=onepage&q=%22snob%22&f=false