nuzzle
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Middle English noselyng, as nose + -lyng (frequentative suffix). By surface analysis, nose + -le (frequentative). Modern affectionate, intimate sense 1590s, possibly influenced by nestle or nursle (frequentative of nurse).[1]
Pronunciation[edit]
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈnʌzl̩/
Audio (Southern England) (file) - (General American) IPA(key): /ˈnʌzəl/, [ˈnʌzɫ̩]
- Rhymes: -ʌzəl
- Hyphenation: nuz‧zle
Verb[edit]
nuzzle (third-person singular simple present nuzzles, present participle nuzzling, simple past and past participle nuzzled)
- (transitive, intransitive) (of animals, lovers, etc) To touch someone or something with the nose.
- The horse nuzzled its foal’s head gently to wake him up.
- The bird nuzzled up to the wires of the cage.
- She nuzzled her boyfriend in the cinema.
- 2010, Jennifer Egan, “Selling the General”, in A Visit from the Goon Squad:
- Within a couple of hours, pictures of General B nuzzling Kitty Jackson were being posted and traded on the Web.
- (obsolete) To nurse; to foster; to bring up.
- 1641 May, John Milton, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England: And the Cavvses that hitherto have Hindred it; republished as Will Taliaferro Hale, editor, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England (Yale Studies in English; LIV), New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1916, →OCLC:
- The people had been nuzzled in idolatry.
- (obsolete) To nestle; to house, as in a nest.
- (obsolete) To go along with the nose to the ground, like a pig.
- 1733, Humphry Polesworth [pseudonym; John Arbuthnot], Alexander Pope, compiler, “Law is a Bottomless Pit. Or, The History of John Bull. […]. The Second Part. Chapter VII. Of the Hard Shifts Mrs. Bull was Put to, to Preserve the Manor of Bullock’s-Hatch; with Sir Roger’s Method to Keep off Importunate Duns.”, in Miscellanies, 2nd edition, volume II, London: […] Benjamin Motte, […], →OCLC, page 94:
- It vvould have done your Heart good to have ſeen him charge through an Army of Lavvyers, Attornies, Clerks, and Tradeſmen; ſometimes vvith Svvord in Hand, at other Times nuzzling like an Eel in the Mud.
- 1733–1737, Alexander Pope, [Imitations of Horace], London: […] R[obert] Dodsley [et al.]:
- 1951 October, R. S. McNaught, “Lines of Approach”, in Railway Magazine, page 706:
- It was nearly all downhill into Shrewsbury, with two intermediate stops, and a grand sequence of long curves around which Soult nuzzled her way with a quick side-to-side action.
Alternative forms[edit]
Related terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
touch with the nose
|
References[edit]
- ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “nuzzle”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
- Folk-etymology: a dictionary of verbal corruptions or words perverted in form or meaning, by false derivation or mistaken analogy, Abram Smythe Palmer, G. Bell and Sons, 1882, p. 261
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms suffixed with -le (verbal frequentative)
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/ʌzəl
- Rhymes:English/ʌzəl/2 syllables
- English lemmas
- English verbs
- English transitive verbs
- English intransitive verbs
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- English terms with obsolete senses
- English frequentative verbs