Fob

How to spell fob

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce fob

What does fob mean?

1. nounA small device or ornament attached to a keyring, often an electronic remote for unlocking doors.
2. nounA short chain or decorative attachment for a pocket watch, or the small waistcoat pocket holding it.
3. verbTo put someone off with excuses or to palm off something inferior in place of what was wanted.

Fob in a sentence

• noun

  The building manager issued each tenant a security fob for the front door.

• noun

  The antique pocket watch came with a gold fob and a tiny seal.

• verb

  The salesman tried to fob the buyer off with a cheaper model.

• noun

  She tapped the fob against the reader to start the car.

• noun

  He tucked the timepiece into his waistcoat and let the fob hang in view.

• verb

  Managers should not fob staff off with vague promises about pay.

Where does fob come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Fob first appears in English in the early 1600s as a word for a small pocket sewn into the waistband of breeches, used to carry a watch or coins. It seems to come from a Low German or dialectal Germanic word; the German Fuppe, meaning a small pocket, is the usual relative cited. From that pocket sense came the 'watch fob', the short chain or decorative ornament that hung from the pocket so the watch could be drawn out, and in modern times the word shifted again to name the small key holder or electronic remote that dangles from a keyring. A quite separate but possibly related verb 'to fob off', meaning to cheat or to put someone off with an excuse, also dates from around 1600 and may share the same Germanic source through the idea of slipping something away. Because the word is short and phonetically plain, the only real spelling caution is resisting a doubled letter or a stray silent ending; it stays simply f, o, b.

How the word is built

• fob (single root; from a Germanic dialect word for a small pocket)