subs. (colloquial).—Hypocrisy; CANT (q.v.): as verb. = to complain; to BLEAT (q.v.). Hence SNIVELLER (or SNIVELARD) = a whining malcontent; SNIVELLING = hypocritical repentance (B. E. and GROSE).
1440. Promptorium Parvulorum, 461. SNYVELARD, or he þat spekythe yn the nose.
c. 1520. Coventry Mysteries, ‘Assumption,’ 396 [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 397. There is SNEVELER used in scorn].
1767. STERNE, Tristram Shandy, ix. 12. ‘That SNIVELLING virtue of meekness,’ as my father would always call it.
1771. SMOLLETT, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, Lett. v. I have received a SNIVELLING letter from Griffin.
1780. SHERIDAN, The Camp, i. 1. Come forward, you SNIVELLING, sneaking sot, you.
1809. MALKIN, Gil Blas [ROUTLEDGE], 224. Indeed am I punished for having preposterously lowered myself to the level of a dirty SNIVELLING adventurer.
1849. E. P. WHIPPLE, Essays and Reviews, II. 117, ‘The Croakers of Society and Literature.’ He SNIVELS in the cradle, at the school, at the altar, in the market, on the death-bed.
1886. St. James’s Gazette, 9 Feb. The cant and SNIVEL of which we have seen so much of late.
1886. BESANT, The World Went Very Well Then, ii. Would’st not surely choose to be a sneakin’ SNIVELLING quill-driver in a merchant’s office?
1898. N. GOULD, Landed at Last, xviii. You SNIVELLING coward!
