snuggle

English

WOTD – 11 June 2007

First attested in 1687. snug +‎ -le (frequentative suffix); spelt with doubled ‘g’ to clarify pronunciation.

snuggle (plural snuggles)

snuggle (third-person singular simple present snuggles, present participle snuggling, simple past and past participle snuggled)

(transitive, intransitive) To lie close to another person or thing, hugging or being cosy.
Sometimes my girlfriend and I snuggle.

The surrounding buildings snuggled each other.

The last drop of jager snuggled the corner of the pint.
- 1922, Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit:
  And when the Boy dropped off to sleep, the Rabbit would snuggle down close under his little warm chin and dream, with the Boy's hands clasped close round him all night long.
- 1949 January and February, F. G. Roe, “I Saw Three Englands–1”, in Railway Magazine, page 12:
  I certainly was not prepared for the cosy nestling valleys that snuggled against the shoulders of the hills; a land where the graystone cottages and farmsteads still prevailed, but where they had taken on something of the softness of their kind in Gloucester and the Cotswolds, and seemed almost like growths of the soil; […] .
To move or arrange oneself in a comfortable and cosy position.
Tired but satisfied, the children snuggled into their sleeping bags.

The pet dog snuggles into its new bed.

to lie close to another person or thing, hugging or being cosy

to move or arrange oneself in a comfortable and cosy position

Terms derived from the noun or verb snuggle