fob

• enPR: fŏb, IPA^(key): /fɒb/

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• Rhymes: -ɒb

From Low German Fobke (“pocket”) or High Prussian Fuppe (“pocket”). This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

fob (plural fobs)

1. A little pocket near the waistline of a pair of trousers or in a waistcoat or vest to hold money or valuables, especially a pocket watch.
   • 1711, Jonathan Swift, Windsor Prophecy:

     With a saint at his chin and a seal at his fob.

   • 1792, Thomas Holcroft, Anna St. Ives, volume VII, Fragment:

     As soon as they had confined my arms they left me, and remembering the bank-notes which I had in my fob, I began to fear they had come to the knowledge of this circumstance […] .

2. A short chain or ribbon to connect such a pocket to the watch.
3. (see usage notes) A small ornament attached to such a chain.
4. A hand-held electronic device that can be used as a remote control or as a key to unlock motor cars, doors, etc., and thus, modern car keys.

From German foppen (“to mock”).

• fub

fob (third-person singular simple present fobs, present participle fobbing, simple past and past participle fobbed)

1. (transitive, archaic) To cheat, to deceive, to trick, to take in, to impose upon someone.
   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]:

     I think it is scurvy, and begin to find myself fobbed in it.

2. (transitive, archaic) To beat; to maul.

• to fob off

• Robert Hunter, Charles Morris, editors (1897), Universal Dictionary of the English Language, volume 2, page 2146

Abbreviation.

fob (not comparable)

1. (Incoterm) Alternative letter-case form of FOB (“free on board”).

• BOF, F. B. O., F.B.O., F/B/O, FBO