schnozz
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English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Likely from Yiddish שנויץ (shnoyts), cognate to German Schnauze (“snout”) and English snout.[1][2] Compare schnozzle. A less common theory suggests a variant of nose influenced by schm-, or by general association with Yiddish words.[3] Attested since at least 1940.
Pronunciation
[edit]Audio (General Australian): (file)
Noun
[edit]schnozz (plural schnozzes)
- (slang) Nose.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:nose
- 1969, Philip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint[1], New York: Vintage, published 1994, pages 149–150:
- […] you have got J-E-W written right across the middle of that face—look at the shnoz on him, for God’s sakes!
- 1993 March 5, Adam Langer, “Sex Lives of Superheroes/Subfertile”, in The Chicago Reader[2]:
- There's a TV commercial out now for a nasal spray in which a man in need of a decongestant wakes up to find that his entire head has turned into a giant schnozz.
- 1998 June 26, Cecil Adams, “The Straight Dope”, in The Chicago Reader[3]:
- One presumes the anesthetic is for the bull, although if I were about to pound a nail through some bull's schnozz I might want some anesthetic myself.
- 1999 November 5, Carl Zimmer, “Society of Vertebrate Paleontology: The Stories Behind the Bones”, in Science[4], volume 286, number 5442, , →ISSN, pages 1071–1074:
- In another talk, a DinoNose collaborator, Scott Sampson of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, pointed out a number of ridges in the ceratopsian schnozz that probably supported curtains of cartilage; these in turn may have served as scaffolding for layers upon layers of mucous membranes.
References
[edit]- ^ “schnozz, n.”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1982.
- ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “schnozz”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
- ^ “schnoz”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged., Random House, Inc., 2018 March 30 (last accessed)