HOB OR NOB. Will you hob or nob with me? a question formerly in fashion at polite tables, signifying a request or challenge to drink a glass of wine with the proposer: if the party challenged answered Nob, they were to chuse whether white or red. This foolish custom is said to have originated in the days of good queen Bess, thus: when great chimnies were in fashion, there was at each corner of the hearth, or grate, a small elevated projection, called the hob; and behind it a seat. In winter time the beer was placed on the hob to warm: and the cold beer was set on a small table, said to have been called the nob; so that the question, Will you have hob or nob? seems only to have meant, Will you have warm or cold beer? i.e. beer from the hob, or beer from the nob. HOBBERDEHOY. Half a man and half a boy, a lad between both. HOBBLED. Impeded, interrupted, puzzled. To hobble; to walk lamely. HOBBLEDYGEE. A pace between a walk and a run, a dog-trot. HOBBY. Sir Posthumous's hobby; one nice or whimsical in his clothes. HOBBY HORSE. A man's favourite amusement, or study, is called his hobby horse. It also means a particular kind of small Irish horse: and also a wooden one, such as is given to children. HOBBY HORSICAL. A man who is a great keeper or rider of hobby horses; one that is apt to be strongly attached to his systems of amusement. HOBNAIL. A country clodhopper: from the shoes of country farmers and ploughmen being commonly stuck full of hob-nails, and even often clouted, or tipped with iron. The Devil ran over his face with hobnails in his shoes; said of one pitted With the small pox. HOBSON'S CHOICE. That or none; from old Hobson, a famous carrier of Cambridge, who used to let horses to the students; but never permitted them to chuse, always allotting each man the horse he thought properest for his manner of riding and treatment. HOCKS. vulgar appellation for the feet. You have left the marks of your dirty hocks on my clean stairs; a frequent complaint from a mop squeezer to a footman. HOCKEY. Drunk with strong stale beer, called old hock. See HICKEY. HOCKING, or HOUGHING. A piece of cruelty practised by the butchers of Dublin, on soldiers, by cutting the tendon of Achilles; this has been by law made felony. HOCUS POCUS. Nonsensical words used by jugglers, previous to their deceptions, as a kind of charm, or incantation. A celebrated writer supposes it to be a ludicrous corruption of the words hoc est corpus, used by the popish priests in consecrating the host. Also Hell Hocus is used to express drunkenness: as, he is quite hocus; he is quite drunk. HOD. Brother Hod; a familiar name for a bricklayer's labourer: from the hod which is used for carrying bricks and mortar. HODDY DODDY, ALL A-SE AND NO BODY. A short clumsy person, either male or female. HODGE. An abbreviation of Roger: a general name for a country booby.