Words / N / General

nabob

noun/ˈneɪbɒb/

C2CEFR level
88/100Rarity: very rare
FormalRegister

A person of great wealth or prominence, especially one who acquired a fortune abroad.

The seaside town was full of villas built by nineteenth-century nabobs returning from the colonies.

Similar: magnate, tycoon, plutocrat

Origin: From Urdu/Hindi 'nawwāb', an honorific for a provincial governor under the Mughal empire.

Topic: wealth in General English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

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More general words: wealth