snob
When snob first began to be found in print, it was used as a term for a shoemaker, or cobbler.
No one knows why we used to call shoemakers snobs, although it seems fairly clear that this meaning was the first one intended by this word, beginning in the early to mid-18th century. The Oxford English Dictionary has evidence indicating that the word was next used in Cambridge University slang by the end of that century, to refer to a denizen of the town, rather than of the college.
By the 1830s snob had taken on meanings that were directly related to class, but not in the way that we use it today. This early 19th century sense was “a person not belonging to the upper classes; one not an aristocrat.” In the middle 19th century the word took on the meaning of “one who blatantly imitates, fawningly admires, or vulgarly seeks association with those he regards as his superiors.
Finally, by the beginning of the 20th century snob had come to be used to mean “one who tends to rebuff the advances of those he regards as inferior; one inclined to social exclusiveness.”
merriam-webster.com
No one knows why we used to call shoemakers snobs, although it seems fairly clear that this meaning was the first one intended by this word, beginning in the early to mid-18th century. The Oxford English Dictionary has evidence indicating that the word was next used in Cambridge University slang by the end of that century, to refer to a denizen of the town, rather than of the college.
By the 1830s snob had taken on meanings that were directly related to class, but not in the way that we use it today. This early 19th century sense was “a person not belonging to the upper classes; one not an aristocrat.” In the middle 19th century the word took on the meaning of “one who blatantly imitates, fawningly admires, or vulgarly seeks association with those he regards as his superiors.
Finally, by the beginning of the 20th century snob had come to be used to mean “one who tends to rebuff the advances of those he regards as inferior; one inclined to social exclusiveness.”
merriam-webster.com