Green’s Dictionary of Slang

nabob n.

a capitalist.

1766		O. Goldsmith Vicar of Wakefield (1883) 62: You fools, I could have promised you a Prince and a Nabob for half the money.
1772		G. Stevens ‘The Nabob’ Songs Comic and Satyrical 39: Ye makers of Nabobs who millions amass, / Eclipsing Nobility’s train.
1778		M.P. Andrews Belphegor (1788) 12: I have more power than the high sheriff, and more wealth than a nabob.
1785		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘The Lousiad’ Works (1794) I 247: A wretch, by age and poverty decay’d, For farthings lately to a Nabob pray’d.
1793		F. Reynolds How to Grow Rich I ii: I never had a shilling, and I’ve always lived like a Nabob.
c.1805		‘To-morrow’ Jovial Songster 49: I’ll envy no Nabob his riches or fame.
1818		‘A. Burton’ Adventures of Johnny Newcome III 144: An Admiral, and many Knobs, Who thought of coming back Nabobs.
1825		C.M. Westmacott Eng. Spy I 323: Admiral Hughes, a rich old West India nabob.
1838		D. Jerrold Men of Character I 32: Rich as a nabob, we are convinced he had never wished to pick a pocket.
1841		Comic Almanack Nov. 287: Clubs are crammed, particularly the Oriental, where enormous fires are kept up, and the chilly old nabobs cling round one another like bats in a cellar.
1853		T. Haliburton Sam Slick’s Wise Saws II 303: He can tickle the palate of all ranks, from a nabob [...] down to a chap like poor Hook.
1862		Thackeray Adventures of Philip (1899) 2762: The days of nabobs are long over.
1872		‘Mark Twain’ Innocents at Home 321: There were nabobs in those days [...] Every rich strike in the mines created one or two.
1884		(con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 49: He had a gold watch and chain, and a silver-headed cane — the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the State.
1890		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 July 20/4: Editor Winsor, of the Age, [...] is not a nabob to gaze upon; his soul soars above sartorial details, and he looks as if he were connected with ‘the butchering.’.
1892		W. Norr Stories of Chinatown 50: Pete Reagan and Kid Carroll had turned off some big nabob.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 7 July 23/1: Their young girls fill the literal harems of these norther nabobs, and the rest of the woman and the men are forced to work covered with the barrel of a gun.
1904		E. Robins Magnetic North 145: Say, a nabob like you might give us a tip. How did you do the trick?
1911		E.S. Sorenson Bushman in Life in the Aus. Backblocks 13: Bushmen are accused of being heavy drinkers – called drunkards, in fact – yet what they drink in a year is but a factional portion of the quantity consumed by many of the nabobs of society.
1914		C. Holme Lonely Plough (1931) 141: I’ll envy no Nabob his riches or fame, / Nor what honours may wait him To-morrow.
1922		Broadway Brevities Aug. 6/2: Recent announcement of the nuptials of a young nabob of Wall as well as Murray Hill.
c.1930		(ref. to 1910s) N. Kimball Amer. Madam (1981) 297: Nat Moore, son of a railroad nabob, died from aphrodisiac knock-out drops.
1948		J. Evans Halo For Satan (1949) 83: Louie Antuni, referred to also as the Big Guy [...] the potentate of pimps, the nabob of numbers.
1956		R. Service ‘Cardiac’ in Rhymes for Reality (1965) 215: All wealth apart / ’Tis murder I design, / Not all a Nabob’s wealth / Is worth your health.
1966		C. Stead Cotters’ England (1980) 352: He took her to what she called a ‘Nabob villa,’ porch, pillars, fine windows.
1967		(con. 1900s) in S. Harris Hellhole 163: She describes poor men [...] coming there [i.e. a brothel] and behaving like nabobs with her and the other girls.
1983		S. Gee Never in My Lifetime in Best Radio Play (1984) 71: Nearest I got, I did some street lining for some old Blackie nabob and her car went by.

In phrases