snottery

snottery

English

Etymology

Compare snotty.

Adjective

snottery (comparative more snottery, superlative most snottery)

1. Full of snot or phlegm; snotty.
   • 2001, Bess Ross, Those Other Times, page 78:

     She didn't care about her snottery nose.

   • 2001, Robin Jenkins, Guests of War, page 104:

     "We are about to enter a slavering, snottery, gnashing, bloody, excremental, universal madness, dear boy," he said gently.

   • 2003, James Robertson, Joseph Knight, →ISBN, page 103:

     It ate with a kind of baleful indifference, its wet, snottery trunk curling out mechanically to take the food through the bars.

   • 2012, James Kelman, Mo Said She Was Quirky, →ISBN:

     She made a witty comment about tissues: at least it wasnt a snottery tissue like how some people leave their snottery tissues on the baize.

2. Resembling or characteristic of snot.
   • 1988, Ellen Galford, The fires of Bride: a novel, page 111:

     A mistake in the kitchen one day, and while the rest of the household sup on the golden broth of a cockerel, out comes a bowl of thin, snottery gruel for Mhairi.

   • 1999, Donald Macintosh, Travels in Galloway, →ISBN, page 51:

     The old man sucked at his pipe, a great snottery, gurgling sound, and tamped down the black, oily tobacco with a horny forefinger, keeping up the suspense like the consummate showman that he was.

   • 2007, Christopher Brookmyre, Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks, →ISBN, page 355:

     I heard him laugh, a deep, snottery rumble, familiarly full of phlegm and juvenile amusement.

3. Presumptuous and demanding.
   • 1920, James C. Welsh, The Underworld: The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner, page 192:

     "You are in an unco' hurry," she replied, getting nettled, as she filled a glass. "It doesna' do to be so snottery as a' that."

   • 1995, Jude Collins, Booing the Bishop and Other Stories, page 36:

     She still thought that, in a way, but she'd tell me in any case. I was, she explained, a snottery, two-faced wee shite.

   • 2001, Evelyn Conlon & ‎Hans-Christian Oeser, Cutting the Night in Two: Short Stories by Irish Women Writers:

     Una is turned into a right snottery wee brat, and she will need to mind her step.

Noun

snottery (countable and uncountable, plural snotteries)

1. (rare) filth; abomination

   • To purge the snottery of our slimy time. — John Marston.

   • 1975, Scholia Satyrica - Volumes 1-3, page 29:

     She keeled the pot and swept away the dust. Changed the wet breechclouts, wiped the flowing snottery— And sometimes took a stroll as far as Shottery--

   • 1982, Natalie L. M. Petesch, Duncan's Colony, page 30:

     For some reason (decades of responsiblity to cleanliness and hygiene — what lady could blow her nose into a locust leaf?) the inability to place my hands on what would once have been a commonplace item unnerved me; were we to degenerate into filth and snottery?

2. Snobbishness
   • 1601, Ben Jonson, The Poetaster: Or, His Arraignment:

     No, teach thy Incubus to poetise; And throw abroad thy spurious snotteries, Upon that puft-up lump of balmy froth,

   • 1964, The Smith - Volumes 1-7, page 54:

     In any case it would be nice to know if Neiman-Marcus, that famed emporium of chi-chi and snottery (see The New Yorker, its "home away from home," any issue) and now Dallas's second most-celebrated landmark, purveys chamber-pots — "His" and "Hers," let us say, cast in platinum or palladium (no gold, please, really, where have you been?), having diamond-studded handles (even Neiman-Marcus can't find anything more expensive than diamonds — no chips, of course) and emerald or sapphire eyes (with real lashes — gleaned from Elizabeth Taylor's coiffeur, naturally) encrusted in the bottoms.

   • 1980, Robertson Davies, A Mixture of Frailties, page 82:

     Just you be careful, my girl, not to pick up a lotta snottery when you're over there among all them dudes. You got to keep your feet on the ground, and not get so's we can't understand a word you say.

   • 1999, Kevin Walter Johnson, Was That a Balloon Or Did Your Head Just Pop?, →ISBN:

     He felt shock waves rumble through as he recognized his Sunday school snottery — how he thought he was better than other people, how he had a mighty swirly potty mouth, how at home he'd been on a six-month rampage about homework and chores, and how his sneaking out of the house had betrayed his parents.