snout
pronunciation
How to pronounce snout in British English:
UK [snaʊt]
How to pronounce snout in American English:
US [snaʊt]
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- Noun:
- a long projecting or anterior elongation of an animal's head; especially the nose
- informal terms for the nose
- beaklike projection of the anterior part of the head of certain insects such as e.g. weevils
Word Origin
- snout
- snout: [13] Snout and snot [14] are very close etymologically. Both go back ultimately to a prehistoric Germanic base *snut-or *snūt-, source also of obsolete English snite ‘wipe or pick one’s nose’, German schneuzen ‘blow one’s nose’, and German schnauze ‘snout’ (whence English schnauzer ‘German breed of dog’ [20]). The colloquial snoot ‘nose’ [19] is an alteration of snout, and formed the basis of the adjective snooty [20] (the underlying idea being of holding one’s ‘nose’ in the air in a superior way).=> schnauzer, snooty, snot
- snout (n.)
- early 13c., "trunk or projecting nose of an animal," from Middle Low German and Middle Dutch snute "snout," from Proto-Germanic *snut- (cognates: German Schnauze, Norwegian snut, Danish snude "snout"), which Watkins traces to a hypothetical Germanic root *snu- forming words having to do with the nose, imitative of a sudden drawing of breath (compare Old English gesnot "nasal mucus;" German schnauben "pant, puff, snort" (Austrian dialect), schnaufen "breathe heavily, pant," Schnupfen "cold in the head;" Old Norse snaldr "snout" (of a serpent), snuthra "to sniff, snuffle"). Of other animals and (contemptuously) of humans from c. 1300.
Example
- 1. The strange looking shrew-like creature with a long snout has venomous teeth .
- 2. Turning its ugly snout toward ron instead , giving harry time to run around it .
- 3. The star-nosed mole 's snout has 22 fleshy tentacles that are used to identify food by touch .
- 4. And if you 're not careful , that can 's gonna get stuck on your snout forever and make your life miserable .
- 5. The mata mata is strictly an aquatic species but it prefers standing in shallow water where its snout can reach the surface to breathe .