[Of obscure origin.]
† 1. intr. To be miserly, stingy or saving. Also with it. Obs.
c. 1540. Copland, Hye Way to Spyttel Ho., 25. That man that … euer is bare, hungry and indygent, Scrapynge and snudgynge without any cease.
1573. Tusser, Husb. (1878), 139. Good husbandry snudgeth, for fear of a dout.
1611. Florio, Spilorciáre, to grudge, to snudge, to dodge or play the slouenlie niggard or pinch-pennie.
1611. Cotgr., s.v. Avoine, To snudge it; or churlishly to eat all his meat all alone.
2. To walk in a stooping or meditative attitude. Freq. with along. Now dial.
1677. Miége, Dict., II. s.v., To Snudge about business, aller d’un air rampant, comme font les grands avares. Ibid. (1687), Gt. Fr. Dict., II. s.v., To Snudge along, or go like an old Snudge, or like one whose Head is full of business.
1828–. in dial. glossaries (Yorks., Northampt., E. Anglia, Surrey, Sussex).
Hence Snudging vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1553. T. Wilson, Rhet. (1580), 145. Snudgyng wittely rebuked.
1577. Stanyhurst, Descr. Irel., in Holinshed (1808), VI. 23. Some of his friends, that were snudging penie-fathers, would take him up verie roughlie for … his outragious expenses.
1677. [see SNUDGE sb. 1].
1687. Miége, Gt. Fr. Dict., II. s.v., A Snudging along, demarche de Faquin.
1713. Prior, in Bolingbroke’s Corresp. (1798), II. 445. I cannot imagine how you came to know that snudging boy.
