snuffy

snuffy

English

Etymology

snuff +‎ -y

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsnʌfi/

• Audio (UK)

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Adjective

snuffy (comparative snuffier, superlative snuffiest)

1. Soiled with snuff.
2. Resembling or characteristic of snuff.
3. (obsolete, Scotland) Sulky; angry; vexed.
   • May 27 1680, Marchioness de Sévigné, letter to her daughter, published in English in 1745

     I must now let you know what sort of a personage this same First President is; you imagine that he is a disagreeable snuffy old fellow

   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 3, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, OCLC 2057953:

     The postchaise contained a snuffy old dowager of seventy, with a maid, her contemporary.

4. (slang) Drunk.
   • 2014, Howard Frank Mosher, North Country: A Personal Journey Through the Borderland

     She could fight, too, when I got snuffy. […] Once I come home from elk camp so drunk I couldn't hardly sit my horse, and Sylvie near to kilt me, she fought me so hard.

Derived terms

• snuffily
• snuffiness

References

• (drunk): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary