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fob

UK/fɒb/US/fɒb/
nounB22 meaningsVery rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechneutral

Other forms: fobs

A fob is the small plastic tag you press to unlock a car or open a door at work. It hangs on the keyring beside the keys themselves.

The building sort is usually called a key fob, and it has quietly replaced a great many keys: you touch it to a reader and a lock clicks open. The word is far older than any of that — a fob was once a small pocket in a waistcoat for a watch, which is why a pocket watch on a chain is a fob watch. There is also an unrelated verb, and to fob somebody off is to get rid of them with a weak excuse.

Definitions of fob

  1. 1nounfobA small electronic tag used to unlock a car or a door.B2

    “He pressed the fob and the indicators flashed.”

  2. 2nounpocketA small pocket for a watch, or the chain worn with it.C1

    “A silver chain hung from his fob.”

Phrases it lives in

  • fob someone off — get rid of someone with a weak excuse or a poorer substitute

Where it comes from

A fob was a pocket. The word came from a Low German word for a small pocket, which is where a watch on a fob chain was kept.

  1. Proto-Germanic

    *fikkja

  2. Low German

    Fobke — pocket

  3. English, today

    fob

Built from

  • Fuppe · gmw-ecg — pocket

From Low German Fobke (“pocket”) or High Prussian Fuppe (“pocket”), probably related to Swedish ficka (“pocket”), gmq-oda fikke, gsw figge, Middle Dutch vicke, all from Proto-Germanic fikkja, of uncertain ultimate origin:

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 38 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word