snivel
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈsnɪvəl/
rhymes: -ɪvəl
Forms: form: snivels
form: sniveling
form: snivelling
form: sniveled
form: sniveled
form: snivelled
form: snivelled
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: With stinking breath, swart-cheeks, and hanging chaps;
With wrinkled neck; and stooping as she goes,
With driveling mouth, and with a sniveling nose.
ref: 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)
text: 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.
text: […] he began to snivel, and wherever he tried to hide he was found out by the terrific explosions of his suppressed sneezes.
ref: 1937, J. R. R. Tolkien, chapter 9, in The Hobbit, New York: Random House, published 1982, page 187:
synonyms: sniffle
glosses: To breathe heavily through the nose while it is congested with nasal mucus.
examples: text: 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;
ref: 1660, Roger L’Estrange, “No Fool to the Old Fool”, in A Short View of Some Remarkable Transactions, London: Henry Brome, page 95:
text: […] 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 […]
ref: 1748, Tobias Smollett, chapter 61, in The Adventures of Roderick Random, volume 2, London: J. Osborn, page 267:
text: I never snivel over trifles like that.
ref: 1868, Louisa May Alcott, chapter 15, in Little Women:
text: 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.
ref: 1957, Graham Greene, The Potting Shed, New York: Viking, act 1, scene 1, page 17:
synonyms: word: beef
word: bellyache
word: bemoan
word: bitch
word: bleat
word: carp
word: chunter
word: complain
word: crab
word: croak
word: dump on
word: frine
word: girn
word: give out
word: grumble
word: grotch
word: grouse
word: grouch
word: grump
word: gruntle
word: gripe
word: harp
word: inveigh
word: kvetch
word: latrate
word: make a stink
word: murmur
word: mutter
word: moan
word: nag
word: nark
word: nudzh
word: pinch
word: piss and moan
word: rail
word: rail out
word: repine
word: ride
word: snivel
word: whine
word: whinge
glosses: To cry while sniffling; to whine or complain while crying.
examples: text: This bye 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 shew ye where the MacGregor is?—Ohon! ohon!”
ref: 1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter III, in Rob Roy. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 65:
text: I, the Socman, am shorn of my lands that you may snivel Latin and eat bread for which you never did hand’s turn.
ref: 1891, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 9, in The White Company:
text: ‘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.’
ref: 1934 October, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], “Chapter 2”, in Burmese Days, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, →OCLC:
glosses: To say (something) while sniffling or crying.
Related terms: word: sniffle
word: snuffle