Pronounced: YAHR-uh-bank-uhr, noun
Notes: Certain people may know this word (I didn’t)
Yesterday’s word
The word nabob is
- a provincial governor of the Mogul empire in India
- a person of great wealth or prominence
First usage
Our word came into English in the mid-1600s
Background / Comments
As you might have guessed, the first definition above was the original meaning, which came from the Urdu title nawab for the provincial governor. In the early 1600s, it was reported in English that, in Mogul, the equivalent of an earl was called a Nawbob; this spelling was changed to nabob, but it wasn’t until the late 1700s that it gained the idea of a prominent person — as it was used sarcastically to refer to British officials of the East India Company who returned home with great wealth.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 