snout

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English

Etymology

From Middle English snowte, snoute, from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German snute (alternatively spelled snuut, snuyt), from Proto-West Germanic *snūt, from Proto-Germanic *snūtaz.

Compare Saterland Frisian Snuute, Dutch snuit or snoet (“snout; cute face”), German Schnauze, Schnute. Doublet of snoot.

Pronunciation

Noun

snout (plural snouts)

  1. The long, projecting nose, mouth, and jaw of a beast, as of pigs.
    The pig rooted around in the dirt with its snout.
  2. The front of the prow of a ship or boat. [1]
    • 1944, Miles Burton, The Three Corpse Trick, chapter 5:
      The dinghy was trailing astern at the end of its painter, and Merrion looked at it as he passed. He saw that it was a battered-looking affair of the prahm type, with a blunt snout, and like the parent ship, had recently been painted a vivid green.
  3. (derogatory) A person's nose.
    His glasses kept slipping further down onto his prominent snout.
    • 1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. , London: John Martyn and Henry Herringman, , published 1678; republished in A R Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC:
      Whether his snout a perfect nose is,
      And not an elephant's proboscis
    • 1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, published 1959, →OCLC:
      The bitter laugh laughs at that which is not good, it is the ethical laugh. The hollow laugh laughs at that which is not true, it is the intellectual laugh. Not good! Not true! Well well. But the mirthless laugh is the dianoetic laugh, down the snout — Haw! — so.
  4. The nozzle of a pipe, hose, etc.
    If you place the snout right into the bucket, it won't spray as much.
  5. The anterior prolongation of the head of a gastropod; a rostrum.
  6. The anterior prolongation of the head of weevils and allied beetles; a rostrum.
  8. (British, slang) Tobacco; cigarettes.
    • 1967, Len Deighton, Only When I Larf:
      (Bob, p. 55:) Charlie was the most vicious screw on the block ... He caught me with the two ounces of snout right in my hand, caught me by the hair, and swung me round in the exercise yard ...
      (Spider, p. 175:) She brings me snout and sweets, and sometimes a cake from Mum.
    • 1982, Edward Bond, Saved:
      LIZ. I only got one left. / FRED (calls). Get us some snout. / MIKE. Five or ten?
    • 2000, Joe Randolph Ackerley, P N Furbank, We Think the World of You:
      Also he was "doing his nut" for some "snout." I said I would provide cigarettes.
    • 2004, Allan Sillitoe, New and Collected Stories:
      Raymond rolled a neat cigarette. "What about some snout, then?" "No, thanks." He laughed. Smoke drifted from his open mouth.
  9. The terminus of a glacier.
  10. (slang) A police informer.
  11. A butterfly in the nymphalid subfamily Libytheinae, notable for the snout-like elongation on their heads.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

snout (third-person singular simple present snouts, present participle snouting, simple past and past participle snouted)

  1. To furnish with a nozzle or point.

References

  1. ^ John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “snout”, in The Compact Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, volumes II (P–Z, Supplement and Bibliography), Oxford: Clarendon Press, published 1991, →ISBN, page 1811.

Further reading

Anagrams

Middle English

Noun

snout

  1. Alternative form of snowte
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