snotter

plural snotters · alternative snouter

1. nauticalA 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.

present singular third person snotters · participle present snottering · participle past snottered · past snottered

1. intransitiveTo snivel; to cry or whine.

   What signified his bringing a woman here to snotter and snivel, and bather their Lordships?

   1818 July 25, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], Tales of My Landlord, Second Series, […] (The Heart of Mid-Lothian), volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Company, →OCLC

   2 more examples

   Araund the woman her lile ans ſprawl'd on the hearth, ſome, whiting ſpeals, ſome, ſnottering and crying, and ya ruddy cheek'd lad threw on a bullen to make a loww, for its mother to find her loup.

   1785, William Hutton, A Bran New Wark

   'Aaaaaah. and that's another thing, I want a home,' I snottered. What the hell was going on? I was an emotional wreck[…]

   2021, Alison Craig, Blue Skies at the Birdie and Bramble

2. colloquialTo smack; to hit

   'You snottered a sergeant, didn't you? My oh my! Clouting a police sergeant is something I've dreamed about for years.'

   2013, Maurice Procter, Devil's Due

plural snotters

1. countableuncountableThe wattles of a turkeycock.
2. ScotlandcountableuncountableSnot; mucus.
3. UKcountableobsoleteslanguncountableA handkerchief.

   1 more example

   We had our regular rendezvous, […] where we refreshed ourselves with meat and drink, sung obscene and abominable songs […], instructed the younger members systematically in prigging (stealing,) concerted robberies, washed and valued "snotters" (handkerchiefs,) and disposed of them, besides the other practices of a nefarious and abandoned fraternity.

   1849, The Ragged School Union Magazine, volumes 1-2, page 175

4. UKcountableobsoleteslanguncountableA pickpocket who steals handkerchiefs.

   You're barely breaking even with the snotters stealing handkerchiefs in the square.

   2020, Ellie Jacobs, The Last Orphan: A Victorian Romance