Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To breathe through an obstruction in the nostrils; blubber; sob; cry.
  • noun The red part of a turkey-cock's head.
  • noun Snot.
  • noun Nautical: A rope so attached to a royal- or topgallant-yardarm that in sending down the yard a tripping-line bent to the free end of the snotter pulls off the lift and brace.
  • noun A becket fitted round a boat's mast with an eye to hold the lower end of the sprit which is used to extend the sail.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb Prov. Eng. To snivel; to cry or whine.
  • noun (Naut.) A rope going over a yardarm, used to bend a tripping line to, in sending down topgallant and royal yards in vessels of war; also, the short line supporting the heel of the sprit in a small boat.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun nautical A rope going over a yardarm, used to bend a tripping line to, in sending down topgallant and royal yards in vessels of war; also, the short line supporting the heel of the sprit in a small boat.
  • verb To snivel; to cry or whine

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

Comments

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  • "... a short rope spliced together at the ends, and served with spun-yarn, or covered with hide: it is seized to the size of the mast, leaving a bight to fit the lower end of the sprit, which it confines to the mast."

    Falconer's New Universal Dictionary of the Marine (1816), 487

    October 12, 2008

  • Snotter proper word.

    October 12, 2008

  • Spitter if it were.

    October 12, 2008

  • Snotter best work, but snotter her worst either.

    October 12, 2008

  • Snotter? I don't even .. oh, never mind.

    October 13, 2008

  • ;-)

    October 13, 2008

  • Why they'd think of this term in particular for a type of rope... *thinks*

    *checks OED for earliest usage of snot in the sense we suspect*

    Here it is:

    c1425 Eng. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 636 Hic polipus, snotte.

    c1440 Promp. Parv. 462/1 Snothe, fylthe of the nose (S. snotte).

    1530 PALSGR. 272/1 Snotte of the nose, rovpye.

    1561 T. NORTON Calvin's Inst. IV. 81 That no man should draw snott oute at hys nosethrilles.

    1594 NASHE Unfort. Trav. Wks. (Grosart) V. 154 His snot and spittle a hundred tymes he hath put ouer to hys Apothecarie for snowe water.

    (and so forth)

    Mystery unsolved. It isn't like poop deck, because poop didn't mean what it means now until the late 18th century. But snot... Maybe it has to do with the rope's appearance once it's "seized to the side of the mast."

    October 13, 2008

  • Maybe it derived from a "knot" word instead. Nautical terms seem to be rife with elisions.

    Also, OED seems to suggest that it's a variant of snorter (second definition). And OED's second definition of snort as a noun is nautical slang for snorkel. So maybe. . . .

    October 14, 2008

  • Cool. I like my madeupical etymology more, but perhaps that's just because it's far, far grosser. :)

    October 14, 2008

  • It certainly is. And nothing makes a madeupical term better than its sheer grossout factor.

    October 14, 2008

  • A sailor should be a good knotter

    And know how to rig his lines tauter:

    So master the riches

    Of bowline and hitches

    And humble but mem'rable snotter.

    February 21, 2017