Also 9 -erie. [f. SNUG a.1 + -ERY.]
1. A cosy or comfortable room, esp. one of small size, into which a person retires for seclusion or quiet; a bachelor’s den.
1815. Zeluca, I. 171. You must come and dine, and … play whist in a snuggerie with Lady Whitelock!
1825. Lockhart, in Smiles, Mem. J. Murray (1891), II. xxvii. 229. Habits which render it difficult for me to do any serious work out of my own snuggery.
1853. R. S. Surtees, Sponge’s Sp. Tour, xlii. 230. Each particular apartment … down to the smallest bachelor snuggery, was replete with elegance and comfort.
1892. Baring-Gould, Trag. Caesars, I. 192. On the top of the house was a snuggery, into which he retired when he wanted to be entirely alone.
attrib. 1846. W. White, Jrnls. (1898), 72. It appears from the delivery of Mr. Airy’s address that he is somewhat to blame for the loss of the complete realisation of the discovery of the new planet by Adams of Cambridge, and there seems also to have been an attempt to make a Cambridge snuggery affair of it.
1857. Hughes, Tom Brown, II. viii. Tom … soon managed to place on the snuggery table better materials for a meal.
b. spec. The bar-parlour of an inn or public-house; = SNUG sb.2 2.
1837. Dickens, Pickw., x. There’s these here painted tops in the snuggery inside the bar.
1847. Alb. Smith, Adv. Chr. Tadpole, xxix. (1879), 259. The bar did not differ from others of its class,… but the snuggery behind was remarkable.
2. A snug, comfortable, or cosy house or dwelling.
1833. T. Hook, Parson’s Dau., I. i. It [the cottage] was one of the prettiest things imaginable: its interior was a perfect snuggery.
1847. W. Irving, Life & Lett. (1866), III. 402. Converting what was once rather a make-shift little mansion into one of the most complete snuggeries in the country.
1893. Lady Burton, Life Burton, I. 440. The Diplomats have snuggeries here [i.e., Petropolis], and form a pleasant society.
b. A snug place, position, feature, etc.
1850. Lit. Gazette, 16 Nov., 849/2. The zeal of your modern squire, ensconced in his curtained snuggery of a pew.
1863. Hawthorne, Our Old Home (1883), I. 254. A friend had given us his suburban residence, with all its conveniences, elegancies, and snuggeries.
1867. E. Yates, Forlorn Hope, viii. Lady Muriel rose from the soft snuggery of her cushioned chair.
3. A snug company or party. rare–1.
1831. Lincoln Herald, 1 July, 4/5. Let not this snuggery of literary dunderheads imagine that they are all ambushed.
4. An easy comfortable position or post; a sinecure. rare.
1839. Blackw. Mag., XLV. 767. Another puts his bastard son into a splendid snuggery for life.
1855. Trollope, Warden, iii. Here was a nice man to be initiated into the comfortable arcana of ecclesiastical snuggeries.
