1. intr. Of animals, esp. horses: To snort. Now dial.
c. 1400. Laud Troy Bk., 7738. The horses snored as it hadde thondred.
1530. Palsgr., 724/1. I snore … as a horse dothe.
1648. Hexham, II. Ruchelen, to Grunt, or to Snoore like Hoggs.
1778. G. White, Selborne, lxxxv. They [owls] … can snore and hiss when they mean to menace.
1786. Burns, To Auld Mare, viii. How thou wad prance, an snore, an’ scriegh, An’ tak the road!
1898. C. Spence, From Braes of Carse, 57. He [a bull] … roared and bored and sniffed and snored.
b. Sc. and north. dial. Of things, wind, etc.: To make or give out a roaring or droning noise.
1823. Galt, R. Gilhaize, I. xiv. 156. I never hear my ain bellows snoring at a gaud o’ iron in the fire, but [etc.].
1842. Vedder, Poems, 75. A score of rival steamers … Hiss, flap, and snore, like river monsters.
1886. W. Alexander, St. Augustine’s Holiday, 135. The wind … Humming and snoring thro’ rigging and spar.
c. Of a ship, etc.: To move or cut through the water with a roaring sound; to sail or travel quickly. Chiefly Sc.
1830. Wilson, in Blackw. Mag., XXVII. 540. Our cut-water snores through the swell.
1834. M. Scott, Tom Cringle, x. She began to snore through it like smoke.
1849. Cupples, Green Hand, iii. (1856), 36. The pilot-boat snoring off close-hauled to windward.
2. To make harsh or noisy sounds in sleep by breathing through the open mouth or through the mouth and nose; to breathe in this manner during sleep. Also poet. or rhet., to sleep heavily.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 462/1. Snoryn, yn sleep, sterto.
1530. Palsgr., 724/1. I wylle nat lye with hym, he snoreth so in his slepe.
1576. Fleming, Panopl. Epist., 284. Nature hath not giuen unto men their essence & being … to slugge and snore in the couche of carelessnesse.
1609. Holland, Amm. Marcell., XXVII. xii. 323. Whiles the centinels by reason of securitie were found asleepe that they snored againe, the citie gate was set open.
1658. A. Fox, trans. Würtz’ Surg., III. ii. 222. Sound peoples sleep is not alike, some snoar in their sleep, others without a noise.
1695. Prior, Prol. Dryden’s ‘Cleomenes,’ 20. Most of you snor’d whilst Cleomenes read.
1725. Pope, Odyss., IX. 440. Then nodding with the fumes of wine, [he] Dropt his huge head, and snoring lay supine.
1784. Cowper, Task, I. 90. The nurse sleeps sweetly, hir’d to watch the sick, Whom snoring she disturbs.
1818. Scott, Rob Roy, xxx. [He] tumbled himself into one of the cribs … and soon was heard to snore soundly.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. xvi. 107. He assured me … that he did not snore, and we lay down side by side.
1900. Pollok & Thom, Sports Burma, 286. A solitary tusker elephant sound asleep and snoring loudly.
fig. 1660. N. Ingelo, Bentivolio & Urania, II. (1682), 89. The Soul, having snor’d many hundreds or thousands of years.
b. I snore, used as a mild expletive. U.S.
1790. Mass. Spy, 30 Dec. (Thornton). In one village you will hear the phrase ‘I snore,’—in another, ‘I swowgar.’
1836. Haliburton, Clockm., Ser. I. xii. Now its fairly run out, that’s a fact, I snore. Ibid., xxxvi. You will, I snore.
3. trans. With out or away: To spend or pass (time) in snoring.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., IV. v. 28. Sleepe with it now, Yet not so sound … As hee whose Brow … Snores out the Watch of Night.
a. 1704. T. Brown, Walk round London, A Tavern, Wks. 1709, III. III. 9. Where she Surfeits upon Sack, Smoaks Tobacco in an Elbow-Chair, and Snoars away the Remainder of her Life.
1746. Francis, trans. Horace, Sat., I. iii. 24. III. 41. He drank the Night away Till rising Dawn, then snor’d out all the Day.
1781. Cowper, Hope, 510. The full-gorg’d savage at his nauseous feast Spent half the darkness, and snor’d out the rest.
1829. Scott, Anne of G., xix. Some … snored away the interval between their own arrival and that of the expected repast.
4. To bring into a certain state by snoring (cf. quots.).
1784. Cowper, Task, I. 97. Sleep Of lazy nurse, who snores the sick man dead.
a. 1793. J. Pearson, Polit. Dict., 10. If the House are too sleepy to cough him down, they’ll soon snore him down.
5. To utter with a snore or with a sound resembling this. Also with cognate object.
1790. Coleridge, Inside the Coach, 22. Till ere the splendid visions close We snore quartettes in ecstasy of nose.
1889. A. C. Gunter, That Frenchman! ii. Maurice … is already asleep and snoring the snores of an exhausted manhood.
1891. Daily News, 9 Feb., 6/2. Some good people seemed to snore prayer; they were so sleepy.
