snout

plural snouts

1. The long, projecting nose, mouth, and jaw of a beast, as of pigs.

   The pig rooted around in the dirt with its snout.

2. The front of the prow of a ship or boat.First known use First attested in 1387.

   The dinghy was trailing astern at the end of its painter, and Merrion looked at it as he passed. He saw that it was a battered-looking affair of the prahm type, with a blunt snout, and like the parent ship, had recently been painted a vivid green.

   1944, Miles Burton, The Three Corpse Trick, chapter 5

3. derogatoryA person's nose.

   His glasses kept slipping further down onto his prominent snout.

   2 more examples

   Whether his snout a perfect nose is, And not an elephant's proboscis

   1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC

   The bitter laugh laughs at that which is not good, it is the ethical laugh. The hollow laugh laughs at that which is not true, it is the intellectual laugh. Not good! Not true! Well well. But the mirthless laugh is the dianoetic laugh, down the snout — Haw! — so.

   1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC

4. The nozzle of a pipe, hose, etc.

   If you place the snout right into the bucket, it won't spray as much.

5. The anterior prolongation of the head of a gastropod; a rostrum.
6. The anterior prolongation of the head of weevils and allied beetles; a rostrum.
7. UKslangTobacco; cigarettes.

   Also he was "doing his nut" for some "snout." I said I would provide cigarettes.

   2000, Joe Randolph Ackerley, P N Furbank, We Think the World of You

   3 more examples

   (Bob, p. 55:) Charlie was the most vicious screw on the block ... He caught me with the two ounces of snout right in my hand, caught me by the hair, and swung me round in the exercise yard ... (Spider, p. 175:) She brings me snout and sweets, and sometimes a cake from Mum.

   1967, Len Deighton, Only When I Larf

   LIZ. I only got one left. / FRED (calls). Get us some snout. / MIKE. Five or ten?

   1982, Edward Bond, Saved

   Raymond rolled a neat cigarette. "What about some snout, then?" "No, thanks." He laughed. Smoke drifted from his open mouth.

   2004, Allan Sillitoe, New and Collected Stories

8. The terminus of a glacier.
9. slangA police informer.
10. A butterfly in the nymphalid subfamily Libytheinae, notable for the snout-like elongation on their heads.

present singular third person snouts · participle present snouting · participle past snouted · past snouted

1. To furnish with a nozzle or point.