Definitions
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- a. & n. from
snift . - a small valve opening into the atmosphere from the cylinder or condenser of a steam engine, to allow the escape of air when the piston makes a stroke; -- so called from the noise made by its action.
Etymologies
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Examples
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Here's a realist — Noel Trout, of Los Angeles, who wrote, "My wife, Cathy, and I have done our share of snifting while trying to find something suitable in the dirty-clothes pile (we won't even claim our dirty clothes make it into a hamper)."
Word Fugitives 2004
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Here's a realist — Noel Trout, of Los Angeles, who wrote, "My wife, Cathy, and I have done our share of snifting while trying to find something suitable in the dirty-clothes pile (we won't even claim our dirty clothes make it into a hamper)."
Word Fugitives 2004
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In a remarkably short space of time the hyenas and pariah dogs had adopted the habit of scavengering around all the camps and snifting along the track, after the trains, for stray scraps.
Khartoum Campaign, 1898 or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan Bennet Burleigh
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"Dogs with distemper make a sort of snifting noise."
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It is very happy for your little niece that you have so much the habit of expressing to her your kind feelings; I really think that if my thoughts and feelings were shut up completely within me, I should burst in a week, like a steam-engine without a snifting-clack, now called by the grander name of a safety-valve.
The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Volume 2 Maria Edgeworth 1808
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