snivel
English
Etymology
Old English *snyflan, also attested in the verbal noun snyflung (“mucus”)[1] from snofl, ultimately from the root of snout.
Akin to sniff, snuff.[2].
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈsnɪvəl/
Audio (Southern England) (file) - Rhymes: -ɪvəl
Verb
snivel (third-person singular simple present snivels, present participle (UK) snivelling or (US) sniveling, simple past and past participle (UK) snivelled or (US) sniveled)
- (intransitive) To breathe heavily through the nose while it is congested with nasal mucus.
- Synonym: sniffle
- 1611, Josuah Sylvester (translator), Du Bartas His Deuine Weekes and Workes, London, Book 4, Week 2, Day 4, p. 623,
- […] a Hagg, a Fury by my side;
- With hollow, yellow teeth (or none perhaps)
- With stinking breath, swart-cheeks, and hanging chaps;
- With wrinkled neck; and stooping as she goes,
- With driveling mouth, and with a sniveling nose.
- 1794, Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia, London: J. Johnson, Volume 1, Section 16, Subsection 2, p. 149,
- […] in severe frosty weather, snivelling and tears are produced by the coldness and dryness of the air.
- 1937, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, New York: Random House, 1982, Chapter 9, p. 187,
- […] he began to snivel, and wherever he tried to hide he was found out by the terrific explosions of his suppressed sneezes.
- (derogatory, intransitive) To cry while sniffling; to whine or complain while crying.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:complain
- 1660, Roger L’Estrange, “No Fool to the Old Fool” in A Short View of Some Remarkable Transactions, London: Henry Brome, p. 95,
- Let things come to the Worst; when we have Overturned the Government;—Polluted the very Altar, with our MASTERS BLOOD—Cheated the Publick, &c. ’Tis but to Whine and Snivel to the People; tell them we were mis-led, by Cardinall Appetites;
- 1748, Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Roderick Random, London: J. Osborn, Volume 2, Chapter 61, p. 267,
- […] after a good deal of sniveling and sobbing, she owned, that so far from being an heiress of a great fortune, she was no other than a common woman of the town, who had decoyed me into matrimony […]
- 1868, Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, Chapter 15,
- I never snivel over trifles like that.
- 1957, Graham Greene, The Potting Shed, New York: Viking, Act 1, Scene 1, p. 17,
- ANNE: Aunt Sara’s in the garden, snivelling in a deck chair.
- BASTON: What a hard child you are.
- ANNE: It’s no good being mushy, is it? It’s the truth that matters. and she is snivelling.
- BASTON: You could have said “crying.”
- ANNE: But crying’s quite a different thing.
- (derogatory, transitive) To say (something) while sniffling or crying.
- 1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter 13, in Rob Roy. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, OCLC 82790126:
- This by-dialogue prevented my hearing what passed between the prisoner and Captain Thornton; but I heard the former snivel out, in a very subdued tone, “And ye’ll ask her to gang nae farther than just to show ye where the MacGregor is?—Ohon! ohon!”
- 1891, Arthur Conan Doyle, The White Company, Chapter 9,
- I, the Socman, am shorn of my lands that you may snivel Latin and eat bread for which you never did hand’s turn.
- 1934 October, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], “Chapter 2”, in Burmese Days, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, OCLC 1810828:
- ‘Oh, hell! I’d snivel psalms to oblige the padre, but I can’t stick the way these damned native Christians come shoving into our church.’
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Translations
to breathe heavily through the nose; to sniffle
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to whine or complain, whilst crying
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Noun
snivel (plural snivels)
- The act of snivelling.
- 1692, John Dennis, “The Triumvirate: or, The Battle” in Poems in Burlesque, London, p. 2,
- So Parson Hugh, with Groan and Snivel
- Made half his Congregation drivel,
- 1792, Charles Dibdin, Hannah Hewit: or, The Female Crusoe, London: for the author, Volume 1, Chapter 5, p. 50,
- […] after a bit of a snivel, for you know I am a woman in these matters, I had her treated with all decency, and then committed her to Davy Jones’s locker; and for want of a chaplain, I said the burial service myself […]
- 1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter XVI, in Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], OCLC 3163777:
- Order! No snivel!—no sentiment!—no regret! I will endure only sense and resolution.
- 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 42, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, OCLC 558196156:
- Uriah Heep gave a kind of snivel. I think to express sympathy.
- 1692, John Dennis, “The Triumvirate: or, The Battle” in Poems in Burlesque, London, p. 2,
- Nasal mucus; snot.
- 1593, Gabriel Harvey, Pierces Supererogation: Or A New Prayse of the Old Asse, London: […] Iohn Wolfe, OCLC 165778203; republished as John Payne Collier, editor, Pierces Supererogation: Or A New Prayse of the Old Asse. A Preparative to Certaine Larger Discourses, Intituled Nashes S. Fame (Miscellaneous Tracts. Temp. Eliz. & Jac. I; no. 8), [London: [s.n.], 1870], OCLC 23963073, page 155:
- [A]nd if thou entreate me not the fayrer, (hope of amendment preventeth many ruines) truſt me, I will batter thy carrion to dirt, whence thou camſt, and ſquiſe thy braine to ſnivell whereof it was curdled; […]
- 1653, Thomas Urquhart (translator), The First Book of the Works of Mr. Francis Rabelais, London: Richard Baddeley, Book 1, Chapter 11, p. 53,
- He did let his snot and snivel fall in his pottage […]
- 1770, Thomas Bridges, A Burlesque Translation of Homer, London: S. Hooper, 3rd edition, Volume 2, Book 8, p. 44,
- In streams the blood and snivel flows
- From many a Grecian’s snotty nose,
- 1860, George Borrow (translator), The Sleeping Bard; or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell by Ellis Wynne, London: John Murray, p. 86,
- On quitting this den of furious heat, I got a sight of a lair, exceeding all the rest I had seen in Hell, but one, in frightful stinking filthiness, where was a herd of accursed drunken swine, disgorging and swallowing, swallowing and disgorging, continually and without rest, the most loathsome snivel.
- 1952, Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1962, Chapter 3, p. 59,
- […] he ran his sleeve under his nose to stop the snivel.
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Derived terms
- sniveller
- snivelling
- snivelly
Translations
the act of snivelling
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nasal mucus; snot
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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References
- “snivel”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary,
- “snivel”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
Anagrams
- Levins, Nevils, Slevin, Sliven, V lines, V-lines, levins, livens, sliven