snuffy

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English

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Etymology

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From snuff +‎ -y.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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snuffy (comparative snuffier, superlative snuffiest)

  1. Soiled with snuff.
  2. Resembling or characteristic of snuff.
  3. (obsolete, Scotland) Sulky; angry; vexed.
    • May 27 1680, Marchioness de Sévigné, letter to her daughter, published in English in 1745
      I must now let you know what sort of a personage this same First President is; you imagine that he is a disagreeable snuffy old fellow
    • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 3, in The History of Pendennis. [], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, [], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:
      The postchaise contained a snuffy old dowager of seventy, with a maid, her contemporary.
  4. (slang) Drunk.
    • 2014, Howard Frank Mosher, North Country: A Personal Journey Through the Borderland:
      She could fight, too, when I got snuffy. [] Once I come home from elk camp so drunk I couldn't hardly sit my horse, and Sylvie near to kilt me, she fought me so hard.

Derived terms

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References

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  • (drunk): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary