[f. the vb.]
† 1. Surf or surge. Obs.–1
1630. Capt. Smith, Trav. & Adv., 54. Such a snuffle of the Sea goeth on the shore, ten may better defend than fifty assault.
2. An (or the) act of snuffling.
a. 1764. Lloyd, Actor, Poet. Wks. 1774, I. 16.
| Fill up the measure of the motley whim | |
| With shrug, wink, snuffle, and convulsive limb. |
1809. Malkin, Gil Blas, I. xii. ¶ 3. What is a prison above-ground, after so brimstone a snuffle as thou hast had of the regions below?
1835. Marryat, J. Faithful, iii. It was an intellectual nose…. Its snuffle was consequential, and its sneeze oracular.
1865. Baring-Gould, Were-wolves, viii. 126. She hears the tramping of his approaching feet, and the snuffle of his breath.
3. pl. A stopped condition of the nose, through a cold in the head or otherwise, causing a snuffling sound in the act of respiration.
1770. Mrs. Delany, Life & Corr., Ser. II. (1861), I. 317. She has at present a little London cold, but her Grace says it is ‘only the snuffles.’
1799. M. Underwood, Dis. Child. (ed. 4), III. 107. The slightest symptom … is that called the Snuffles, or stoppage of the nose.
1845. Dickens, Chimes, iv. 139. The nose afflicted with that disordered action of its functions which is generally termed the Snuffles.
1878. T. Bryant, Pract. Surg., II. 6. The snuffles in infancy are very characteristic.
4. A nasal tone in the voice.
1820. Scott, Monast., v. With a hypocritical snuffle, and a sly twinkle of his eye.
1830. H. Lee, Mem. Manager, I. ii. 61. His spectacles … being rather too small for him … increased his natural snuffle.
1859. Jephson, Brittany, i. 3. The monotonous whine and snuffle of the children in the National School as they read.
Comb. 1889. Conan Doyle, Micah Clarke, 94. Do you but get half-a-dozen broad-brimmed snuffle-nosed preachers into a camp, and the whole Presbytery tribe will swarm round them like flies on a honey-pot.
