[f. SNUB v.1]
1. The action of checking, repressing, or rebuking, esp. by means of a snub.
1600. Surflet, Countrie Farme, VI. xxii. 778. At the least by snubbing and checking of naturall heat.
1693. Bampfield, Reply to Wallis, 55. Other snubbing of Sunday … I remember none, but he often calls the Lords Sabbath by a reflecting addition.
1768. Goldsm., Good-n. Man, IV. I did hear him say, a little snubbing, before marriage, would teach you to bear it the better afterwards.
1861. Sat. Rev., 14 Sept., 268. By cultivating the art of snubbing.
1876. F. E. Trollope, Charming Fellow, III. xxv. 302. The kind-hearted little spinster endured a vast amount of snubbing.
attrib. 1869. Trollope, He knew, etc. xlii. (1878), 231. On that occasion,… being in a snubbing humour, [she] had snubbed him.
b. An instance of this.
1841. J. H. Newman, in Apologia (1864), 241. I have managed to take out on my side my snubbing’s worth.
1857. S. Osborn, Quedah, xii. 153. They got a severe snubbing for doing so.
1896. A. J. C. Hare, Story Life, II. viii. 99. I was more free from family snubbings than I had ever been before.
2. Naut. and U.S. (See SNUB v.1 2 b.)
1846. A. Young, Naut. Dict., 288. Snubbing, checking or easing off a little of a ship’s cable or hawser, in order to prevent a sudden jerk when bringing the vessel up, or on other occasions.
1889. A. T. Pask, Eyes Thames, 69. The snubbing of the chain gives a disagreeable jerking which is trying to the system.
b. attrib., as snubbing-line, -post.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2231/2. Snubbing-line.… The line on the bow of a canal-boat [etc.].
1887. Sci. Amer., 21 May, 326/2. From either torpedo a stout line is carried forward, and the ends are attached on starboard and port to snubbing posts that project over the water like catheads.
1888. T. Roosevelt, in Century Mag., March, 655/2. The high, circular horse-corral, with a snubbing-post in the center.
1900. W. Fawcett, in Engineering Mag., XIX. 665. The checking of the ship when afloat is done exclusively by snubbing lines.
