It's Marion Webster's Word of the Day for July 1st.

Today's word is Nabob, spelled N-A-B-O-B.

Nabob is a noun. A nabob is a very rich or important person.

Here's the word used in a sentence from the Boston Globe. NBA Nabob's were dismayed by the player empowerment era, where players

dictated trades or abandoned teams via free agency. In India's Mughal Empire, founded in the 16th century, provincial governors carried the

Urdu title of Nawab. In 1612, Captain Robert Kouvert published a report of his discovery

of the great mogul, a prince not till now known to our English nation.

The captain informed the English-speaking world that an earl is called a now-bob,

thereby introducing the English version of the word.

Nabob, as it later came to be spelled, gained its extended sense of a prominent person in the 18th century,

when it was applied sarcastically to British officials of the East India Company returning home after amassing great wealth in Asia.

But the word was most famously used by Vice President Spiro Agnew in a 1970 speech

written by William Sapphire when he referred

to critical members of the news media as nattering nabobs of negativism.

With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.

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