snifter

English

Noun

snifter (plural snifters)

1. A small alcoholic drink.
   • 1917, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Oakdale Affair, ch. 1:

     "I guess you're a regular all right. Here, have a snifter?" and he pulled a flask from his side pocket, holding it toward The Oskaloosa Kid.

2. A pear-shaped glass for drinking brandy or other alcoholic beverages.
   • 2003 Jan. 20, "Getting Saucy," Time:

     [H]e springs to another wooden vat and turns a valve, filling a snifter with a warm amber liquid. […] Bang holds the liquid up to the light, swirls it around, takes a sniff of the pungent bouquet, puts the glass to his lips—and gives a satisfied smile.

3. (US) A severe storm.
4. (chiefly in the plural) A sniff or sniffle.
   • 1844, Henry Stephens, The Book of the Farm (volume 2, page 260)

     The only disease I can remember to have seen in winter is what is vulgarly called the snifters, that is, a discharge of matter from the nose, which causes a noise in the nose like stifled breathing.

Synonyms

• (small alcoholic drink): dram, nip, slug, tot

Translations

small alcoholic drink

• Finnish: naukku (fi)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

pear-shaped glass

• Finnish: aromilasi
• French: verre à cognac m, pipe à cognac
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• German: Kognakglas n, Kognakschwenker m
• Italian: napoleone (it) m

Verb

snifter (third-person singular simple present snifters, present participle sniftering, simple past and past participle sniftered)

1. To sniff.