Etymology

hobson-jobson

Today it means: Any Indian religious observance, especially the Muharram. Full definition →

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The story

Derived from adapting the call Hassan! Hussein! (حَسَن حُسَيْن (ḥasan ḥusayn), a lament for the grandsons of the Prophet Muhammad) to Hobson and Jobson, a pair of comic figures popular in the nineteenth century. Note that the conventional derivation from "Ya Hassan! Ya Hussein!" is incorrect. Coined in the linguistic sense by Yule and Burnell in their dictionary Hobson-Jobson.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.