Dictionary

sniffingly en · ADV

Etymology

From sniffing + -ly.

Meanings

1. With a sniffing sound or action.
   • All during the night the riding ponies had grazed in close proximity to the house, had stamped about it, and occasionally had put their noses to its cracks, sniffingly to satisfy either curiosity or a desire for human companionship. 1997, Philip Ashton Rollins, The Cowboy, page 191:
2. With haughty disapproval.
   • Philip Hone sniffingly noted in his diary that "they increase our taxes, eat our bread and encumber our streets, and not one in twenty is competent to keep himself." 2004, Edward Robb Ellis, The Epic Of New York City: A Narrative History, page 232:
   • Mrs. Chow down the street, for instance, why did she look so sniffingly upon him when she heard the children, in the harmless uproar of their play, cry him aloud as Daddy? 2007, Christopher Morley, Where the Blue Begins, page 27:

Forms