Etymology

snifter

snift·er
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Today it means: To sniff; also, to snivel or snuffle. Full definition →

Middle English snifteren
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The story

  1. Middle English · inherited fromsnifteren
  2. English todaysnifter

The verb is derived from Middle English snifteren, snifter, snyfter (“to sniffle”), possibly from *snift (possibly derived from an Old Norse word—compare Old Danish snifte and Swedish snyfta (“to sniffle; to sob”); probably ultimately imitative) + -er- (frequentative suffix) + -en (suffix forming the infinitive of verbs). The noun is derived from the verb.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.