[f. SNUFF sb.3]
Bailey (1727, vol. II.) gives ‘Snuffy,… dawbed with Snuff,’ an earlier instance of either 2 a or 2 b.
1. Like, or resembling, snuff or powdered tobacco in color or substance.
1789. J. Williams, Min. Kingd., I. 285. A brownish ferruginous soft soil, of a snuffy appearance.
1860. Sala, Baddington Peerage, i. They were mostly bright yellow, or of that peculiar shade of green known as ‘snuffy.’
1872. Coues, N. Amer. Birds, 290. Head snuffy-brown, and no white patch in front of the eye.
1884. W. H. Rideing, in Harper’s Mag., March, 522/2. The atmosphere is filled with a black or snuffy dust.
2. a. Of persons: Given to taking snuff; bearing marks of the habit of snuff-taking.
c. 1790. A. Wilson, Watty & Meg, Poet. Wks. (c. 1846), 151. Nasty, gude-for-naething being! O ye snuffy, drucken sow!
1826. Disraeli, V. Grey, III. vii. 118. A little odd-looking snuffy old man, with a brown scratch wig.
1848. Thackeray, Trav. Lond., Wks. 1886, XXIV. 349. Dinners where you meet … a Knight, and a snuffy little old General.
1888. Mrs. H. Ward, R. Elsmere, 309. Two well-known English antiquarians—very learned, very jealous, and very snuffy.
b. Of things: Soiled with snuff.
1840. Thackeray, Shabby-genteel Story, i. A snuffy shirt-frill, and enormous breast-pin.
1856. Ld. Cockburn, Mem., i. (1874), 46. His old snuffy black clothes, his broad flat feet, and his threadbare blue great-coat.
1885. [Kath. S. Macquoid], in Harper’s Mag., March, 563/2. Madame Bobineau pulled out a snuffy pocket-handkerchief and hid her face behind it.
3. ‘Tipsy, drunk’ (Slang Dict., 1864).
1891. Newcastle Even. Chron., 30 Jan., 4/6. He considered, if a member got ‘snuffy,’ he should go home, and not come there to annoy the meeting.
