[f. SNUFF sb.3]
Bailey (1727, vol. II.) gives ‘Snuffy,… dawbed with Snuff,’ an earlier instance of either 2 a or 2 b.
1. Like, or resembling, snuff or powdered tobacco in color or substance.
1789. J. Williams, Min. Kingd., I. 285. A brownish ferruginous soft soil, of a snuffy appearance.
1860. Sala, Baddington Peerage, I. i. 7. They were mostly bright yellow, or of that peculiar shade of green known as ‘snuffy.’
1872. Coues, N. Amer. Birds, 290. Head snuffy-brown, and no white patch in front of the eye.
1884. W. H. Rideing, in Harper’s Mag., March, 522/2. The atmosphere is filled with a black or snuffy dust.
2. a. Of persons: Given to taking snuff; bearing marks of the habit of snuff-taking.
c. 1790. A. Wilson, Watty & Meg, Poet. Wks. (c. 1846), 151. Nasty, gude-for-naething being! O ye snuffy, drucken sow!
1826. Disraeli, V. Grey, III. vii. 118. A little odd-looking snuffy old man, with a brown scratch wig.
1848. Thackeray, Trav. Lond., Wks. 1886, XXIV. 349. Dinners where you meet … a Knight, and a snuffy little old General.
1888. Mrs. H. Ward, R. Elsmere, 309. Two well-known English antiquarians—very learned, very jealous, and very snuffy.
b. Of things: Soiled with snuff.
1840. Thackeray, Shabby-genteel Story, i. A snuffy shirt-frill, and enormous breast-pin.
1856. Ld. Cockburn, Mem., i. (1874), 46. His old snuffy black clothes, his broad flat feet, and his threadbare blue great-coat.
1885. [Kath. S. Macquoid], in Harper’s Mag., March, 563/2. Madame Bobineau pulled out a snuffy pocket-handkerchief and hid her face behind it.
3. ‘Tipsy, drunk’ (Slang Dict., 1864).
1891. Newcastle Even. Chron., 30 Jan., 4/6. He considered, if a member got ‘snuffy,’ he should go home, and not come there to annoy the meeting.
