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Spiro Agnew delivered his 'nattering nabob' speech on this day in 1970
Word of the Day – Tuesday, September 11th |
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NABOB (NAY-bob) A
person of wealth and prominence
In colloquial usage in English (since 1612), adopted in other Western languages, the corrupted form nabob (never officially awarded, but homophonous with the Bengali pronunciation) was erroneously used instead of Nawab but, also, since 1764 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 of speech, as in Spiro Agnew's famous dismissal of the press as "nattering nabobs of negativism".
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Nabob".
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