Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (Anglo-Ind.) to reject a proposal of marriage.

1829		[H.B. Henderson] Bengalee 147: [H]e was burra khoosee that the Judge sahib had been juwabed by the young spinster at the Doctor’s.
1836		Asiatic Jrnl & Mthly Register 20 97: [W]hen a Christian gentleman makes a proposal of marriage to a young lady, and is rejected, he is jawaubed, and qualified for the club instituted, according to common report, in order that disappointed lovers may be sure of consolation and sympathy from others who have suffered a similar fate.
1840		Sporting Mag. (London) 14: Poor Smith had proposed and been jawabed many times, but always returned each season to the attack with renewed hopes.
1847		C. Campbell Rough Recollections III 182: Miss Douglas was the unrivalled belle of the Presidency, and had juwabed – Anglicè, answered, – i.e. rejected, Hymen and herself alone know how many suitors!
1848		J.H. Stocqueler Oriental Interpreter 114/2: JUWAUB, literally, ‘an answer,’ but familiarly used in Anglo-Indian colloquy to imply a negatur to the matrimonial proposal. [...] ‘He has been juwaubbed,’ denotes the failure of an aspirant to obtain the hand of the object of his devotion.
1855		J.H. Stocqueler ‘The crime of colour’ in Patriotic Fund Jrnl 17 Feb. 164/2: ‘If not too late, she shall juwaub the contemptible Toodleton.’ Somers did not quite comprehend the word juwaub. ‘Not know what juwaubing is? Ask Hardwicke there’.
1857		D. Forbes Dict. Hindustani & Eng. 295/1: [W]hen a lady rejects a gentleman’s matrimonial overtures, the inconsolable swain is said to have been jaw?bed.
1859		G.F. Atkinson Curry & Rice (3 edn) n.p.: Although the multiplicity of his applications and entreaties to the maidens of Juwabpore [...] won for him the soubriquet of the ‘Solicitor-General,’ they were, one and all, impervious, unpropitions, unkind.
1865		Hotten Sl. Dict. 164: JUWAUB, literally, in Hindostanee, an answer; but in Anglo-Indian Slang signifying a refusal. If an officer asks for leave and is refused, he is said to be JUWAUBED; if a gentleman unsuccessfully proposes for the hand of a lady, he is said to have got the JUWAUB. – Anglo-Indian.
1861		Hills & Plains I 146: ‘I cannot be any unhappier than I am now if she does “jawab” me’.
1867		All The Year Round (London) 28 Dec. 67/1: After having ‘jawaubed’ – an Anglo-Indian term, which means, answered, or refused – two such very eligible persons in one month, Annie Stevens had not what the Americans call ‘a good time’ of it with her parents.
1869		R.F. Burton Explorations of the Highlands of Brazil I 364: A certain Colonel Montenegro, when ‘jawáb’d,’ as the Anglo Indian says, taunted her with preferring to a ‘gentleman of fortune and position,’ a poor ‘man who wrote books’.
1872		E. Braddon Life in India 158: [A] moribund conversation, and speculation as to whether Mr. B. has proposed to or been refused (jawaub’d) by Miss Y.
1873		J.H. Stocqueler Memoirs of a Journalist 7: He juwaubbed Miss Foote when he found she was the mother of two children of whom Colonel Berkely (Lord Fitzhardinge) was the putative father.
1888		Kipling Story of Gadsbys 78: G. A man has a right to live his life as happily as he can. You aren’t married. / M. No praise be to Providence and the one or two women who have had the good sense to jawab me.
1897		E.H.A. Behind the Bungalow 93: He can tell us, too, the reason why she ‘jawaubed’ him so often.

2. to dismiss from employment.

1877

A. Allardyce ‘The Anglo-Indian Tongue’ in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Mag. May 544/2: ‘Rukhsat’ implies a courteous dismissal; when a servant misbehaves, he gets ‘jawabed,’ or turned away in disgrace.