[Imitative: cf. SNIFT v.]
Other purely dial. senses are recorded in the Eng. Dial. Dict., as, to giggle, to snow slightly, etc.
1. intr. To sniff, snivel, snuffle.
c. 1340. Nominale (Skeat), 152. Man snyfterith and nose snyt.
1483. Cath. Angl., 347/1. To Snyfter, revmatizare, fleumaticare.
1611. Cotgr., Brouffer, to snurt, or snifter with the nose, like a horse. Ibid., Nifler, to snifter, or snuffe vp sniuell; to draw it vp by drawing in the wind.
1719. Ramsay, 2nd Answ. to Hamilion, xii. Gin I can snifter thro’ mundungus.
1825–. in Sc. and north. glossaries and texts (Eng. Dial. Dict.).
1835. Hogg, Tales & Sk., V. 266. I was obliged to … snifter like a whipped boy.
1853. Hickie, trans. Aristoph. (1872), II. 550. He would have lain sniftering if he was a coward.
2. trans. With out: To utter (words) in a snuffling manner. rare.
1880. W. Grant, Christ our Hope, etc. p. xx. He is indeed a forcible speaker, sniftering out his words with the quaintest, queerest accent.
Hence Snifterer; Sniftering ppl. a.
1790. A. Wilson, Rabby’s Mistake, Poems 1876, II. 41. Nae sniftering dog had he, I wat, To air’t him to the lanely spat Whare ony creature lay.
a. 1800. Pegge, Suppl. Grose, Sniftering fellow; a shuffling sneaking fellow. Lanc.
1855. [Robinson], Whitby Gloss., Snifle,… to have the habit of puffing in audible successions through the nostrils, as a ‘snifterer.’
