hob-or-nobbing

Updated: May 29, 2025

Sure enough, there at a table, on which burned a light as blue as brimstone, sat the three guests from Gibbet-Island, with halters round their necks, and bobbing their cups together, as if they were hob-or-nobbing, and trolling the old Dutch freebooter's glee, since translated into English: "For three merry lads be we, And three merry lads be we; I on the land, and thou on the sand, And Jack on the gallows-tree."

Washington Irving - Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies