snivel
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈsnɪvəl/
rhymes: -ɪvəl
Forms: form: snivels
Etymology: From Middle English snivelen, snevelen, snyvelen, snuvelen, from Old English *snyflan (attested in the verbal noun snyflung (“mucus”)), from Proto-West Germanic *snuflijan, related to Old English snofl (“mucus”), ultimately from the root of snout. Akin to sniff, snuff. Compare sniffle.
Cognate with Middle Low German snuffelen, snüffelen (“to sniff, smell”), Danish snøvle (“to sniffle, snivel”), Norwegian Nynorsk snuvla (“to sniffle, snivel”), Swedish snövla (“to sniffle, snivel”).
Compare typologically Russian сопе́ть (sopétʹ), сопля́ (sopljá) akinnes.
Senses: examples: text: So Parson Hugh, with Groan and Snivel
Made half his Congregation drivel,
ref: 1692, John Dennis, “The Triumvirate: or, The Battle”, in Poems in Burlesque, London, page 2:
text: […] 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 […]
ref: 1792, Charles Dibdin, chapter 5, in Hannah Hewit: or, The Female Crusoe, volume 1, London, page 50:
text: Order! No snivel!—no sentiment!—no regret! I will endure only sense and resolution.
ref: 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:
text: Uriah Heep gave a kind of snivel. I think to express sympathy.
ref: 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 42, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC:
glosses: The act of snivelling.
examples: text: [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; […]
ref: 1593, Gabriell Haruey [i.e., Gabriel Harvey], Pierces Supererogation: Or A New Prayse of the Old Asse. A Preparative to Certaine Larger Discourses, Intituled Nashes S. Fame, London: […] Iohn Wolfe, →OCLC; republished as John Payne Collier, editor, Pierces Supererogation: Or A New Prayse of the Old Asse. […] (Miscellaneous Tracts. Temp. Eliz. & Jac. I; no. 8), [London]: [s.n.], [1870], →OCLC, page 155:
text: He did let his snot and snivel fall in his pottage […]
ref: 1653, Thomas Urquhart, transl., The First Book of the Works of Mr. Francis Rabelais, London: Richard Baddeley, Book 1, Chapter 11, p. 53:
text: 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,
text: 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.
ref: 1860, Ellis Wynne, translated by George Borrow, The Sleeping Bard; or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell, London: John Murray, page 86:
text: […] he ran his sleeve under his nose to stop the snivel.
ref: 1952, Flannery O’Connor, chapter 3, in Wise Blood, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, published 1962, page 59:
glosses: Nasal mucus; snot.
Derived terms: sniveller
snivelling
snivelly