snuffing

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of snuff

plural snuffings

1. The act by which a candle, etc. is snuffed out.
2. The act of one who, or that which, snuffs or makes a low sniffing sound.

   Then there were frantic snuffings under the doors, and a general agitation.

   1879, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Vixen

   1 more example

   It was early on the fifteenth day that I heard a curious familiar sequence of sounds in the kitchen, and, listening, identified it as the snuffing and scratching of a dog.

   1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 236