1887 All Year Round 22 Jan. 10 The fisherman's stick or nobby, used in the salmon fishing.

1899 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Oct. 489 The crews of forty-eight row-boats..and of eighteen nobbies and hookers.

1936 E. Vale Seas & Shores Eng. ii. 19 The Morecambe Bay fishermen with their specially evolved cutter-rigged smack called a nobby have been for generations famous throughout the three western seas of Britain.

1948 R. de Kerchove Internat. Maritime Dict. 491/1 Nobbie, nobby.

1953 J. Masefield Conway (rev. ed.) iv. 209 We had three sailing dinghies—and the nobby—a heavier boat of about eighteen feet.

1970 E. J. March Inshore Craft Great Brit. II. viii. 280 The early smacks, ‘nobbies’ to use the local name, were about 36 ft long, and drew 4 ft of water.

1990 Independent 11 Aug. 32 The nobby was and still is a sleek low-lying boat..with an elegant stern.

1919 Huon Times (Franklin, Tasmania) 21 Nov. 3/3 A little seam-opal is found on the field, but most of the gem occurs in ‘nobbies’, a species of flat, pebble-shaped stone.

1948 E. F. Murphy They struck Opal 140 Nobbies are..scattered here and there like shells on the beach.

1967 S. Lloyd Lightning Ridge Bk. Introd. Dug out a cleanskin nobby. It was a bonza stone and a whopper too.

1987 Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 16 Jan. (Great Outdoors Suppl.) 8/3 The famous opal ‘nobbies’ at Lightning Ridge are fossilised remains of aquatic plants embedded in the silts that formed the famous layer of opal dirt.

1788 E. Picken Poems & Epist. 178 The herds o' mony a knabbie laird War trainin' for the shambles.

c1810 in J. S. Farmer & W. E. Henley Slang (1902) V. 57/1 A werry nobby dog's meat man.

1847 A. Smith Nat. Hist. Gent x. 67 He would think that he was not ‘nobby’ if he did not have some wretched champagne.

1853 W. Watson Poems 2 Our lairds an' nabby renters.

1884 Harper's Mag. Jan. 230/2 How ‘nobby’ the Captain used to look..in the..silk suits.

1924 J. H. Wilkinson Leeds Dial. Gloss. & Lore 158 He lewks reight nobby i' 'is new suit.

1977 Listener (N.Z.) 15 Jan. 28/4 Naturally enough any self-confessed ‘egalitarian’ society will have as its national pastime the knocking of nibs or nobby persons, particularly if they also happen to be politicians.

1987 W. McPherson Sargasso Sea (1988) iii. 161 I might think I wasn't nobby enough for you.

1844 ‘C. Selby’ London by Night ii. i Enter Ankle Jack, extravagantly dressed. I fancy I shall do, my togs being in keeping with this nobby place.

1853 C. Dickens Bleak House liv. 522 Respecting this unfortunate family matter, and the nobbiest way of keeping it quiet.

1893 ‘Q’ Delectable Duchy 212 An outfit..described as ‘rather nobby’.

1916 C. Porter Lyrics (1983) 25/3 Nowadays it's rather nobby To regard one's private hobby As the object of one's tenderest affections.

1952 S. J. Perelman in Redbook Feb. 97/1 A serried row of floodlit edifices..trumpeted to the newcomer that he was in the nobbiest winter playground ever devised.

1990 Ms London 2 July 24/2 We did gigs, clubs and nobby functions, balls etc.

2000 Times Higher Educ. Suppl. 7 Apr. 11 (heading) Mr University pours scorn on ‘nobby’ Oxford.

1857 J. E. Ritchie Night Side of London 60 We pay sixpence if we take a seat in the body of the hall, and ninepence if we do the nobby and ascend into the balcony.

1863 E. Farmer Scrap Bk. (ed. 3) 75 He went for the nobby, he heeded not price.

1882 P. MacNeill Preston 92 Gin ye a hearty lass wad win Dinna court her like a nobby.