Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To inhale (something) audibly through the nose; sniff.
- v. To sense or examine by smelling; sniff at.
- v. To sniff; inhale.
- n. The act of snuffing or the sound produced by it; a snuffle.
- n. The charred portion of a candlewick.
- v. To extinguish: snuffed out the candles.
- v. To put a sudden end to: lives that were snuffed out by car accidents.
- v. Slang To kill; murder.
- v. To cut off the charred portion of (a candlewick).
- n. A preparation of finely pulverized tobacco that can be drawn up into the nostrils by inhaling. Also called smokeless tobacco.
- n. The quantity of this tobacco that is inhaled at a single time; a pinch.
- n. A powdery substance, such as a medicine, taken by inhaling.
- v. To use or inhale snuff.
- idiom. up to snuff Informal Normal in health.
- idiom. up to snuff Informal Up to standard; adequate.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To draw in through the nose with the breath; inhale: as, to snuff the wind; to snuff tobacco.
- To scent; smell; take a sniff of: perceive by smelling.
- To examine by smelling; nose: said of an animal.
- To inhale air vigorously or audibly, as dogs and horses.
- To turn up the nose and inhale air, as in contempt or anger; sniff disdainfully or angrily.
- To smell; especially, to smell curiously or doubtfully.
- To take snuff into the nose. Compare to dip snuff, under dip, v. t.
- n. Inhalation by the nose; a sniff; also, a pinch of snuff.
- n. Smell; scent; odor.
- n. Offense; resentment; huff, expressed by a sniffing.
- n. A powdered preparation of tobacco taken into the nostrils by inhalation. It is made by grinding, in mortars or mills, the chopped leaves and stalks of tobacco in which fermentation has been induced by moisture and warmth. The tobacco is well dried previous to grinding, and this is carried sometimes so far as to give the peculiar flavor of the high-dried snuffs, such as the Irish, Welsh, and Scotch. Some varieties, as the rappees, are moist. The admixture of different flavoring agents and delicate scents has given rise to fanciful names for snuffs, which, the flavor excepted, are identical. Dry snuffs are often adulterated with quicklime, and the moist kinds with ammonia, hellebore, pearl-ash, etc.
- n. In therapeutics, any powder with medicinal properties to be snuffed up into the nose.
- To crop the snuff of, as a candle; take off the end of the snuff from.
- n. The burning part of a candle- or lamp-wick, or the part which has been charred by the flame, whether burning or not.
- n. A candle almost burnt out, or one having a heavy snuff.
- n. In mining, same as smift.
- In currying, to smooth or put out with a sleeker. See to put out , under put, intransitive verb
Wiktionary
- n. Finely ground or pulverized tobacco intended for use by being sniffed or snorted into the nose.
- n. Fine-ground or minced tobacco, dry or moistened, intended for use by placing a pinch behind the lip or beneath the tongue; see also snus.
- n. A snort or sniff of fine-ground, powdered, or pulverized tobacco.
- n. The act of briskly inhaling by the nose; a sniff, a snort.
- n. Resentment or skepticism expressed by quickly drawing air through the nose; snuffling; sniffling.
- n. obsolete Snot, mucus.
- n. obsolete Smell, scent, odour.
- v. To inhale through the nose.
- n. The burning part of a candle wick, or the black, burnt remains of a wick (which has to be periodically removed).
- n. obsolete Leavings in a glass after drinking; heel-taps.
- n. attributive Pertaining to a form of pornographic film which involves someone's actually being murdered.
- v. To extinguish a candle or oil-lamp flame by covering the burning end of the wick until the flame is suffocated.
- v. slang To kill a person; to snuff out.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The part of a candle wick charred by the flame, whether burning or not.
- v. To crop the snuff of, as a candle; to take off the end of the snuff of.
- v. To draw in, or to inhale, forcibly through the nose; to sniff.
- v. To perceive by the nose; to scent; to smell.
- v. To inhale air through the nose with violence or with noise, as do dogs and horses.
- v. To turn up the nose and inhale air, as an expression of contempt; hence, to take offense.
- n. The act of snuffing; perception by snuffing; a sniff.
- n. Pulverized tobacco, etc., prepared to be taken into the nose; also, the amount taken at once.
- n. obsolete Resentment, displeasure, or contempt, expressed by a snuffing of the nose.
WordNet 3.0
- v. sniff or smell inquiringly
- n. the charred portion of a candlewick
- n. a pinch of smokeless tobacco inhaled at a single time
- n. sensing an odor by inhaling through the nose
- v. inhale audibly through the nose
- adj. snuff colored; of a greyish to yellowish brown
- n. finely powdered tobacco for sniffing up the nose
Etymologies
- Origin uncertain. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English snoffen, to snuff a candle, sniffle, probably from snoffe, snuff; see snuff2.Middle English snoffe, possibly of Low German origin.Dutch snuf, short for snuftabak : Dutch snuffen, to sniff; see snuffle + tabak, tobacco. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Seems to me, sir -- _snuff, snuff, snuff_ -- that the way to do him good is to let him have his own way, so long as he doesn't want to do anything silly.”
Yussuf the Guide The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor
“Darwin also regularly went roaming from his study on foot, to dip snuff from a jug in the hall, or to check the mail, delivered several times a day then.”
“I dont choose to see murders depicted, either in snuff films or in snuff photography.”
“Ndaru confirmed that police recovered the panga and snuff from the slain suspect.”
“When we had arrived at a place near the last ones, we sat down; they indulged in snuff and conferred together, while I several times suggested that we should make our way over towards the tent and settle down for the night, for we were exhausted and needed rest, while the sick man could go and place himself in the care of the mamba.”
“While they talked they indulged in snuff, and looked too closely at our ponies to make us feel altogether comfortable, the mamba standing near us being of the same opinion as ourselves.”
“I'd doubt it, but you usually snort cocaine or something called snuff which is totally legal.”
“The ones who cut off people’s head in snuff videos.”
“I have seen equally - or more - educated immigrants (and equally "lillywhite") both in Europe and in the USA, who were treated like dirt, and denied opportunities, because their language was not up to "snuff" - their language made them sound uneducated.”
“Court records show the detectives found a graphic video, commonly known as a snuff film, in the couple ` s apartment there in Independence.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘snuff’.
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SMILE and other emotive verbs
Single verbs that describe expression or emotional reaction. "He __ed" (smiled/gulped/scoffed...)
smile, beam, sneer, scoff, giggle, laugh, snigger, scowl, grin, leer, wince, grimace and 97 more...
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EN - archaic words
abide, abjure, abroad, adamant, afield, aforetime, aghast, anon, apace, argent, assuage, aught and 328 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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snose words
Words that relate to the nose, particularly those that begin with sn-
sniff, sneer, snub, sneeze, snarl, snort, snide, snout, snob, snooze, snot, snore and 11 more...
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The Nose Knows
Being Nosy.
nosethril, nostril, nebby, nasal, rhinoplasty, pug, button, Roman, turned-up, Pinocchio, Cyrano de Bergerac, Gonzo and 54 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1901 more...
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Words from books I've read
These are some words I didn't know when I read and now I want to know!
mortgage, fiddling, rage, kick, stroke, dodge, hunch, scratch, covetous, rank, trickle, budget and 179 more...
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ChortleGiggleSnort
Significant Words- Guiding you on your path to Snazzibility
flimsy, feeble, ranting, ramble, narky, snazzy, yoghurt, bulbous, pustule, globulous, geranium, megalomaniac and 521 more...
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Twitter favourites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
thunderfuck, incredible, merp, sara, flopparoo, smother, fugly, buer, plum, canny, nefelibata, cuntbucket and 1972 more... -
Just 'cause I like 'em, S
scrunch, solace, sabotage, saccade, sacerdotal, sacrilegious, sacristy, snappy, skew, steadfast, scowl, scorch and 781 more...
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strangelyrouge's Words
glockenspiel, gewgaw, jetsam, flotsam, gripe, grab, wench, whilst, betwixt, hither, thither, yonder and 1034 more...
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kalidas's Words
crepuscular, mellifluous, ephemeral, diaphanous, zeitgeist, geisterfahrer, infinite, eternal, idyllic, azure, reminiscent, oblivion and 521 more...
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zzyyxx's Words
plethora, drout, functional, rye, wring, doubt, cognative, weird, gnaw, surcease, rend, languish and 438 more...
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AbraxasZugzwang's Words
atavism, abraxas, sisyphean, frust, fetus-in-fetu, arhythmically, queef, epidemiology, abecedarian, troglodyte, chiaroscuro, philology and 631 more...
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huck finnian
ain't, stretchers, without, sivilize, hogshead, victuals, bulrushers, tolerable, goggles, middling, reckoned, who-whooing and 287 more...
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Moby-Dick
Interesting words and usages.
hypo, spile, hunks, grapnel, squitchy, skrimshander, monkey jacket, direful, grego, wrapall, dreadnaught, bosky and 158 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for snuff.

Telofy “When asked the whereabouts of the campus bookstore, a university student who replied ‘There’s a great show about California condors on Channel 4 tonight’ would certainly cause raised eyebrows, though you couldn’t point to ungrammatical English as the culprit. The student’s grammatical competence would appear to be fine, but his or her communicative competence would seem not up to snuff.�? – Language: Its Structure and Use by Edward Finegan
Oct 14, 2009
bilby
SPIES, you are lights in state, but of base stuff,
Who, when you've burnt yourselves down to the snuff,
Stink, and are thrown away. End fair enough.
- Ben Jonson, 'To Fool, Or Knave'. Jul 28, 2009
yarb Citation on stercoraceous. Jan 2, 2009
yarb ...with one nostril he unthinkingly snuffed the sugary musk from the Bashee isles...
- Melville, Moby-Dick, ch. 111 Jul 30, 2008