SNUFF • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Snuff

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/snəf/ Listen

noun

Snuff n. The part of a candle wick charred by the flame, whether burning or not. "If the burning snuff happens to get out of the snuffers, you have a chance that it may fall into a dish of soup."

Snuff n.

The act of snuffing; perception by snuffing; a sniff.

Pulverized tobacco, etc., prepared to be taken into the nose; also, the amount taken at once.

Resentment, displeasure, or contempt, expressed by a snuffing of the nose. (Obs.)

Snuff dipping. See Dipping, n., 5.

Snuff taker, one who uses snuff by inhaling it through the nose.

To take it in snuff, to be angry or offended.

Up to snuff, not likely to be imposed upon; knowing; acute. (Slang)

verb

Snuff v. t. (past & past part. snuffed; pres. part. snuffing) To crop the snuff of, as a candle; to take off the end of the snuff of.

To snuff out, to extinguish by snuffing.

Snuff v. t.

To draw in, or to inhale, forcibly through the nose; to sniff. "He snuffs the wind, his heels the sand excite."

To perceive by the nose; to scent; to smell.

Snuff v. i.

To inhale air through the nose with violence or with noise, as do dogs and horses.

To turn up the nose and inhale air, as an expression of contempt; hence, to take offense. "Do the enemies of the church rage and snuff?"

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Etymology of 'Snuff'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Snuff" Quotes from Famous Books

... was satirical or insolent, as the case might demand, in three degrees, of which the snuff-box was the comparative, and the spy-glass the superlative. He had learned this on the stage; in annihilating Quin he had just used the snuff weapon, and now he drew his ...

— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... alarm, [laws to prevent fire] fire code, fire regulations, fire; fire inspector; code violation, citation. V. go out, die out, burn out; fizzle. extinguish; damp, slack, quench, smother; put out, stamp out; douse, snuff, snuff out, blow out. fireproof, flameproof. Adj. incombustible; nonflammable, uninflammable, unflammable[obs3]; fireproof. Phr. fight fire ...

— Roget's Thesaurus

... mother told me of thee, thou brave steed, My terrible father's terrible horse! and said, That I should one day find thy lord and thee. Come, let me lay my hand upon thy mane! O Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I; For thou hast gone where I shall never go, And snuff'd the breezes of my father's home. And thou hast trod the sands of Seistan, And seen the River of Helmund, and the Lake Of Zirrah; and the aged Zal himself Has often stroked thy neck, and given thee food, Corn ...

— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... she thus acknowledged as her husband, had sunk exhausted into a chair near her. He took out his gold snuff-box, and refreshed himself with a leisurely pinch of snuff, looking about him curiously all the while, with a senile grin. That flash of passion which for a few minutes had restored him to the full possession of his reason had burnt itself out, and his mind had relapsed into the condition in ...

— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... Nobody is less of a visionary theorist; nobody has drawn his speculations more from practice. No peer has condescended to superintend with more vigilance the declining franchises of the poor commons. "With thrice great Hermes he has outwatched the Bear." Often have his candles been burned to the snuff, and glimmered and stunk in the sockets, whilst he grew pale at his constitutional studies; long, sleepless nights has he wasted, long, laborious, shiftless journeys has he made, and great sums has he expended, in order to secure the purity, ...

— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

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