snobbery
Americannoun
-
snobberies
plural
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of snobbery
Explanation
Use the noun snobbery when you talk about someone's habit of treating other people as inferior. If your friend doesn't want to associate with people who have less money than she does, it's proof of her snobbery. Snobbery is an unattractive trait caused by a person's belief that he or she is inherently better than others. Most snobbery has to do with social class and the idea that someone who has more money or went to a fancier school is worthier than someone who doesn't have these advantages. The root of snobbery is snob, which in 1800's British slang meant "person of the lower classes," but changed over time to mean "one who despises those considered inferior."
Vocabulary lists containing snobbery
List 2
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List 10
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Instead, it is a quiet study in snobbery.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
Film snobbery notwithstanding, however, much of that will be accomplished via non-Imax 70mm screenings, which come in a near-Homeric list of types.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
The traditionally working class, northern sport of rugby league had never had a representative knighted in 130 years, prompting claims of snobbery.
From BBC ● Jul. 19, 2026
This I-95 rivalry is intense, full of civic snobbery and loutish fandom; in other words, perfect.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 4, 2026
I could see she despised me, marking with all the snobbery of her class that I was no great lady, that I was humble, shy and diffident.
From "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier
The crisis has, Amed points out, broken down outmoded fashion snobberies toward digital.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 13, 2020
Many previous music-critic snobberies have eroded through the consumerist pluralism of the internet, a broader politics of cultural representation, and a renewed investment in pleasure as the literal least a listener can ask for.
From Slate ● Jul. 12, 2019
Nonetheless, learning about my boyhood idol’s snobberies and insecurities has left me slightly downcast.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 1, 2017
“Ms. Hollingworth’s snobberies are very tiring, her cozy relations with British embassies irritating,” the English journalist Robert Fisk wrote, reviewing her 1990 memoir, “Front Line.”
From New York Times ● Jan. 10, 2017
How I used to revel in such bitter little snobberies myself; how eay they were, once.
From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
