cock a snook

Idioms  

1. Thumb one's nose, as in As soon as the teacher turned her back, the boys cocked a snook at her. This expression was first recorded in 1791 and the precise source of snook, here used in the sense of “a derisive gesture,” has been lost. It is more widely used in Britain but is not unknown in America.

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Example Sentences

Kuti not only got to walk free by he also got to cock a snook at his jailers with this satirical track the following year.

From The Guardian • May 5, 2016

When Teachout, an energetic and articulate law professor, added her name to the Democratic primary ballot, she gave the peeved and the disappointed a costless opportunity to cock a snook at Cuomo.

From The New Yorker • Sep. 10, 2014

More important to the regime is to cock a snook at its several enemies.

From BBC • Dec. 12, 2012

But then, presumably, with the threat of cuts on the darkening horizon, no one artistically minded can afford to cock a snook at a source of finances.

From The Guardian • Nov. 26, 2012

A bird who knows his book Can afford to cock a snook At a chatterer who intrigueth against his chief.

From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 by Burnand, F. C. (Francis Cowley), Sir