Hob-nob

The current meaning and usage of hob-nob is to socialise on familiar terms and dates from the early 19th century. Earlier, from the 1600s, it had specific drinking connotations in that hob-nobbing meant drinking together, where hob and nob meant to give and take i.e. to drink in rounds. Shakespeare used it in this latter sense in Twelfth Night, Act III, Scene IV, when Sir Toby Belch says, “Hob, nob, is his word: give ‘t or take’t.” The OED maintains that hob and nob derives from the even earlier and now obsolete hab and nab that dates back to the late Middle Ages meaning to have and have not, but they all meant drinking and sharing drink with one another.