snivel
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: simple
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) akinness.
Inflected forms:
form: snivels
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: sniveling
pos: verb
tags: US
participle
present
form: snivelling
pos: verb
tags: UK
participle
present
form: sniveled
pos: verb
tags: US
participle
past
form: sniveled
pos: verb
tags: US
past
form: snivelled
pos: verb
tags: UK
participle
past
form: snivelled
pos: verb
tags: UK
past
form: snivels
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: To breathe heavily through the nose while it is congested with nasal mucus.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: With stinking breath, swart-cheeks, and hanging chaps;
With wrinkled neck; and stooping as she goes,
With driveling mouth, and with a sniveling nose.
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.
[…] he began to snivel, and wherever he tried to hide he was found out by the terrific explosions of his suppressed sneezes.
gloss: To cry while sniffling; to whine or complain while crying.
pos: verb
tags: derogatory
intransitive
examples: 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;
[…] 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 […]
I never snivel over trifles like that.
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.
gloss: To say (something) while sniffling or crying.
pos: verb
tags: derogatory
transitive
examples: 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!”
I, the Socman, am shorn of my lands that you may snivel Latin and eat bread for which you never did hand’s turn.
‘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.’
gloss: The act of snivelling.
pos: noun
examples: So Parson Hugh, with Groan and Snivel
Made half his Congregation drivel,
[…] 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 […]
Order! No snivel!—no sentiment!—no regret! I will endure only sense and resolution.
Uriah Heep gave a kind of snivel. I think to express sympathy.
gloss: Nasal mucus; snot.
pos: noun
examples: [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; […]
He did let his snot and snivel fall in his pottage […]
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,
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.
[…] he ran his sleeve under his nose to stop the snivel.
Related words: sniffle
snuffle
Derived words: sniveler
snivelingly
snivellingly
sniveller
snivelling
snivelly
snivel rights
Translations: