snooty
Americanadjective
adjective
-
aloof or supercilious
-
snobbish or exclusive
a snooty restaurant
Usage
What does snooty mean? Snooty means snobby. It’s typically used to describe a person who thinks they have better taste or higher standards than other people and treats them in a condescending way because of it. Snooty is always used negatively. It’s often used to describe people that exclude others, typically due to the perception that others are not good enough. Snooty isn’t only applied to people—you can call a restaurant snooty, for example, if it’s overly exclusive. A snooty person can be called a snoot, which means the same thing as snob. But the adjective snooty is much more commonly used than the noun snoot. Example: The kids in my class are so snooty—they all just stick to their own cliques and don’t try to make friends with anyone else.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of snooty
Explanation
Use the word snooty to describe someone who is a terrible, stuck-up snob. Your snooty grandmother might refuse to take the subway because she doesn't want to mix with regular people. Snooty people generally think they're better than everyone else, often because they have more money or believe they belong to a higher social class. A snooty college freshman might demand a single room in the very best dorm, and a snooty waiter in a fancy restaurant might make you feel like you don't belong there. Snooty first appeared as college slang in 1918, from the now defunct 1800's word snouty, which implied "looking down your nose at people."
Vocabulary lists containing snooty
Crash
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Genesis Begins Again
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One Crazy Summer
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Her plot-rich story includes art terrorists, undercover agents, snooty Parisians, sneaky New Yorkers and a one-armed billionaire.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 30, 2026
DNA is a snooty aristocrat, never stooping to engage in day-to-day tasks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 13, 2025
“Grosse Pointe Garden Society” is set in the upscale, i.e. snooty, Detroit suburb of that name.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 23, 2025
Robert Sietsma, at Eater, wrote in April 2023 that the Noortwyck is a "handsome but casual restaurant" that "may sound snooty; it's anything but."
From Salon ● Nov. 13, 2024
Or the snooty “Don’t you even know your own mother’s name?”
From "One Crazy Summer" by Rita Williams-Garcia
The Guardian's Hephzibah Anderson said Keyes' book would win her something "long overdue in snootier literary quarters: respect".
From BBC ● May 26, 2024
It also gave him a leg up on snootier agents who may have tossed their newspaper sports sections.
From New York Times ● Sep. 4, 2022
Versions of these knockoffs are still stocked in drugstores although snootier noses can tell the real deal from an Imposter and may gag at its very mention.
From Salon ● May 7, 2021
Martha had lived in Madrona for decades, by the end of which, it wasn’t the same — not as mixed in terms of race, overall snootier, she said with regret.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 10, 2019
“Yes, and she’s even snootier than those boys across the street. And their parents. She’s the worst!”
From "Pride" by Ibi Zoboi
Heard about that fresh new wave of horror dominating the box office and charming even the snootiest of critics?
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026
Eliot, newest, biggest, "snootiest" of the Houses, draws the same type of youth as Dunster, but is cut up into social cliques.
From Time Magazine Archive
I told Mom she was the snootiest squatter I’d ever met, and that made her laugh.
From "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
