snobbery
Americannoun
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:
The 1990s cocktail revival introduced a layer of snobbery to speakeasy-style bars, long after any subterfuge was necessary.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 14, 2026
Robinson believes "football snobbery" is behind some of the reluctance to embrace set-pieces as a potential game-changer.
From BBC ● Mar. 27, 2026
"In darts, we've defeated the snobbery in sport," promoter Barry Hearn said in a recent interview with British newspaper The Times.
From Barron's ● Dec. 30, 2025
Out of context, that quote may lend weight to the strain of snobbery that wrote off “Blood and Sand” before the plot found its footing, which it did after its introductory episodes.
From Salon ● Dec. 7, 2025
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
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
Scholarly though his instincts were he had no snobberies about higher journalism.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 20, 2010
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.
