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 1892. Hume Nisbet, Bushranger's Sweetheart, p. 109. I had hob-nobbed for the last two hours with the most notorious bushranger in the colony.

1892. A. K. Green, Cynthia Wakeham's Money, p. 5. Each tree looks like a spectre hob-nobbing with its neighbour.

Hobbes's-voyage, subs. (old).—A leap in the dark.

1697. Vanbrugh, Provoked Wife, v., 6. So, now, I am in for Hobbes's voyage; a great leap in the dark.

Hobbinol, subs. (old).—A countryman. For synonyms, see Joskin.

1663. Killigrew, The Parson's Wedding, ii., 3 (Dodsley, Old Plays, 4th ed., 1875, xiv., 396). Who, Master Jeffrey? Hobbinol the second! By this life, 'tis a very veal, and licks his nose like one.

Hobble. In a hobble (or Hobbled), adv. phr. (colloquial).—In trouble; hampered; puzzled. Also (thieves), committed for trial. Fr., tomber dans la mélasse (= to come a cropper), and faitré (= BOOKED (q.v.)). Hobbled upon the legs = transported, or on the hulks.

1777. Foote, Trip to Calais (1795), ii., p. 39. But take care what you say! you see what a hobble we had like to have got into.

1789. Geo. Parker, Life's Painter, p. 163. A term when any of the gang is taken up and committed for trial, to say, such a one is hobbled.

1811. Poole, Hamlet Travestie, iii., 5. Horatio, I am sorry for this squabble; I fear 'twill get me in a precious hobble.

1819. Vaux, Cant. Dict., s.v. Hobbled, taken up, or in custody; to hobble a plant, is to spring it.

1838. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 2nd S., ch. xvii. A body has to be cautious if he don't want to get into the centre of a hobble.

1849. Punch, Fortune-Tellers' Almanack. To dream that you are lame is a token that you will get into a hobble.

1892. Milliken, 'Arry Ballads, p. 44. I got into a 'obble.

Verb (venery).—See quot.

1688. Sempill, 'Crissell Sandilands' in Bannatyne MSS. (Hunterin Club, 1879-88), p. 354, lines 21-2. Had scho bene undir, and he hobland above, That were a perellous play for to suspect them.

Hobbledehoy, subs. (old, now colloquial).—A growing gawk: as in the folk-rhyme, 'Hobbledehoy, neither man nor boy.' [For derivation, see Notes and Queries, 1 S., v., 468, vii., 572; 4 S., ii., 297, viii., 451, ix., 147; 7 S., iv., 523, and v., 58.]

1557. Tusser, Husbandrie, ch. 60, st 3, p. 138 (E. D. S.). The first seuen yeers bring vp as a childe, The next to learning, for waxing too wilde. The next keepe vnder sir hobbard de hoy, The next a man no longer a boy.

1738. Swift, Polite Convers., Dial 1. Why, he is a mere hobbledehoy, neither a man nor a boy.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends, 'Aunt Fanny.' At the epoch I speak about, I was between a man and a boy, A hobble-de-hoy, A fat, little, punchy concern of sixteen.

1848. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, ch. iv. He remembered perfectly well being thrashed by Joseph Sedley, when the latter was a big, swaggering, hobbady-hoy, and George an impudent urchin of ten years old.

Hence Hobbledehoyish and Hobbledehoyhood.