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Tuesday, December 27, 2005

snivel : M-W's Word of the Day

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The Word of the Day for December 27 is:

snivel \SNIV-ul\ verb
1 a : to run at the nose b : snuffle
2 : to cry or whine with snuffling
*3 : to speak or act in a whining, sniffling, tearful, or weakly emotional manner

Example sentence:
Mom told Jenny to stop sniveling about how mistreated she was and just do her chores.

Did you know?
There's never been anything pretty about sniveling. "Snivel," which originally meant simply "to have a runny nose," was probably "snyflan" in Old English. It's likely related to "sniffle," not surprisingly, and also to an Old English word for mucus, "snofl." It's even related to the Middle Dutch word for a cold, "snof," and the Old Norse word for "snout," which is "snoppa." There's also a connection to "nan," a Greek verb meaning "flow." Nowadays, we mostly use "snivel," as we have since the 1600s, to refer to self-pitying whining, whether or not such sniveling is accompanied by unchecked nasal flow.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.

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