Dictionary

snuffy en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /ˈsnʌfi/
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From snuff + -y.

Meanings

1. Soiled with snuff.
2. Resembling or characteristic of snuff.
3. (Scotland, obsolete) Sulky; angry; vexed.
   • I must now let you know what sort of a personage this same First President is; you imagine that he is a disagreeable snuffy old fellow May 27 1680, Marchioness de Sévigné, letter to her daughter, published in English in 1745
   • The postchaise contained a snuffy old dowager of seventy, with a maid, her contemporary. 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 3, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:
4. (slang) Drunk.
   • She could fight, too, when I got snuffy. […] Once I come home from elk camp so drunk I couldn't hardly sit my horse, and Sylvie near to kilt me, she fought me so hard. 2014, Howard Frank Mosher, North Country: A Personal Journey Through the Borderland:
5. That causes sniffing and nasal irritation due to dust.
   • Giving that up, she took a broom and a duster and went upstairs to housemaid Mrs Dibble's bedroom, with her head tied up in a coloured scarf. It was a dusty, snuffy job, for penuriousness in Mrs Dibble refused to throw anything away, including dirt, and if anything fell on the floor it remained there. 1950, Norman Lindsay, Dust or Polish?, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 32:

Forms

Deriveds

snuffily · snuffiness