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snout

[snout]
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noun
  1. the part of an animal's head projecting forward and containing the nose and jaws; muzzle.
  2. Entomology. an anterior prolongation of the head bearing the mouth parts, as in snout beetles.
  3. anything that resembles or suggests an animal's snout in shape, function, etc.
  4. a nozzle or spout.
  5. a person's nose, especially when large or prominent.

Origin of snout

1175–1225; Middle English snute; cognate with Dutch snuite, German Schnauze
Related formssnout·ed, adjectivesnout·less, adjectivesnout·like, adjectiveun·snout·ed, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for snout

Historical Examples

  • They noticed a great gaping wound as if done by a sword-cut on his snout.

    Japanese Fairy World

    William Elliot Griffis

  • Protected by no bony structure the snout of the monster was amputated.

  • They only allow the end of the snout, or at most the head, to appear.

  • He had his snout thrust out, and was "sniffing" at a great rate.

  • Pterygium: a lateral expansion of the snout of some Coleoptera.

British Dictionary definitions for snout

snout

noun
  1. the part of the head of a vertebrate, esp a mammal, consisting of the nose, jaws, and surrounding region, esp when elongated
  2. the corresponding part of the head of such insects as weevils
  3. anything projecting like a snout, such as a nozzle or the lower end of a glacier
  4. slang a person's nose
  5. Also called: snout moth a brownish noctuid moth, Hypena proboscidalis, that frequents nettles: named from the palps that project prominently from the head at rest
  6. British slang a cigarette or tobacco
  7. slang an informer
Derived Formssnouted, adjectivesnoutless, adjectivesnoutlike, adjective

Word Origin

C13: of Germanic origin; compare Old Norse snyta, Middle Low German, Middle Dutch snūte
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for snout

n.

early 13c., "trunk or projecting nose of an animal," from Middle Low German and Middle Dutch snute "snout," from Proto-Germanic *snut- (cf. German Schnauze, Norwegian snut, Danish snude "snout"), which Watkins traces to a hypothetical Germanic root *snu- forming words having to do with the nose, imitative of a sudden drawing of breath (cf. Old English gesnot "nasal mucus;" German schnauben "pant, puff, snort" (Austrian dialect), schnaufen "breathe heavily, pant," Schnupfen "cold in the head"). Of other animals and (contemptuously) of humans from c.1300.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper