Also 8 snear. [f. the vb. Cf. NFris. sneer a scornful remark.]
1. An act of sneering; a look or expression implying derision, contempt or scorn; a disdainful or scornful remark or utterance, esp. one of a covert or indirect nature.
1706. Reflex. upon Ridicule, 107. He is applauded with a Sneer.
1711. Hearne, Collect. (O. H. S.), III. 251. He looks upon Atterbury’s Complement as a Snear.
1773. Goldsm., Stoops to Conq., III. i. A sneer at my understanding.
1816. J. Scott, Vis. Paris (ed. 5), p. xvii. By making this confession I shall incur the sneers of those … who have strong prepossessions and few scruples.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., vi. II. 113. Halifax … answered with a sneer that there was no danger.
1879. H. George, Progr. & Pov., II. iii. (1881), 121. Amid the scoffs … and the sneers that stab like knives.
b. Without article: Sneering, scorn.
1791. Ld. Auckland, Corr. (1861), II. 396. He speaks even of those who are opposed to his government … without either sneer or acrimony.
1841. in Leic. Gloss. (1881), 246. He could not bear To see her treated with such scorn and sneer.
2. Sc. A snort.
Jamieson (1825), also gives ‘the act of inhalation or inspiration by the nostrils’; ‘the act of a horse, when colded, in throwing the mucus from his nostrils’; ‘the hiss of an adder.’
17[?]. Lochmaben Harper, in Child, Ballads, IV. 18/1. When she came to the harper’s door, There she gave mony a nicher and sneer.
