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Snuff   Listen
noun
Snuff  n.  
1.
The act of snuffing; perception by snuffing; a sniff.
2.
Pulverized tobacco, etc., prepared to be taken into the nose; also, the amount taken at once.
3.
Resentment, displeasure, or contempt, expressed by a snuffing of the nose. (Obs.)
Snuff dipping. See Dipping, n., 5.
Snuff taker, one who uses snuff by inhaling it through the nose.
To take it in snuff, to be angry or offended.
Up to snuff, not likely to be imposed upon; knowing; acute. (Slang)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Snuff" Quotes from Famous Books



... manipulating Fancy Toilet Soaps, Shaving Creams, etc., by new and improved methods. With an Appendix giving hints and advice for making and fermenting Domestic Wines, Cordials, Liquors, Candies, Jellies, Syrups, Colors, etc., and for Perfuming and Flavoring Segars, Snuff and Tobacco, and Miscellaneous Receipts for various useful Analogous Articles. By R.S. CRISTIANI, Consulting Chemist and Perfumer, Philadelphia. ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose

... says well, and himself is the worst thing he hath. In brief, he is the stranger's saint, the neighbour's disease, the blot of goodness, a rotten stick in a dark night, a poppy in a corn-field, an ill-tempered candle with a great snuff that in going out smells ill; and an angel abroad, a devil at home, and worse when an ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... absolute, and no one could be pronounced fortunate till the day of his death, there are few among us whose existence would, upon those conditions, be much to be envied. But this is not a fair view of the case. A man's life is his whole life, not the last glimmering snuff of the candle; and this, I say, is considerable, and not a little matter, whether we regard its pleasures or its pains. To draw a peevish conclus desires or forgetful indifference is about as reasonable ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... quantity of snuff, the commissioner went on, and disclaimed, in strong terms, all knowledge of his son-in-law Sir Robert's cruel conduct to his cousin. The commissioner said that Sir Robert Percy had, since his marriage with Bell Falconer, behaved very ill, and had made his wife show great ingratitude to her own ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... foibles—even, if you will, his vices. I have intimated that he was fond of a jest. "The Sacred College," I heard him remark one day, "has fifty centres of gravity. I sometimes fear that I am its centre of levity." He was also fond of music. He was also fond of snuff: ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... maternal race, The young Autolyci, essay the chase. Parnassus, thick perplex'd with horrid shades, With deep-mouth'd hounds the hunter-troop invades; What time the sun, from ocean's peaceful stream, Darts o'er the lawn his horizontal beam. The pack impatient snuff the tainted gale; The thorny wilds the woodmen fierce assail: And, foremost of the train, his cornel spear Ulysses waved, to rouse the savage war. Deep in the rough recesses of the wood, A lofty copse, the growth of ages, stood; Nor winter's boreal blast, nor thunderous shower, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... idea of the tortures I endure. At night I am awakened with a start by one of my own sneezes. As I go to sleep my motions bring the grains of snuff scattered over the pillow under my nose, I inhale, and explode like a mine. It seems that Armand, the wretch, is used to these surprises, and doesn't wake up. I find tobacco everywhere, and I certainly ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac

... game began the two counts paid their losses of the day before to the general in bank notes, which he begged me to change. I also changed two other notes presented to me by the same gentleman, and put them all under my snuff-box. Play began. I had no croupier, so I was obliged to deal slowly and keep an eye on the two counts, whose method of play was very questionable. At last both of them were dried up, and Castelbajac gave me a bill of exchange for two hundred guineas, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... with preserved provisions); salmon, lobsters, and oysters, also in tins, which last beaten up into fritters, with onions, butter, eggs, pepper, and salt, were very good; game, wild fowl, vegetables, also preserved, eggs, sardines, curry powder, cigars, tobacco, snuff, cigarette papers, tea, coffee, tooth powder, and currant jelly. When cargoes came in from Constantinople, we bought great supplies of potatoes, carrots, turnips, and greens. Ah! what a rush there used to be for the greens. You might sometimes ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole

... did we let out the Secrets of the Blue Bag, the contents of Old Nick's Sack, which that 'stupid old snuff-colour'd son of a gun,' Saint Medard 'cut into slits on the Red Sea shore' would be nothing ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various

... your mother, you say, because she never comes here? True enough—fine ladies let their brats live in cow-dung, but they must have Indian carpets under their own feet. Well, ask the abate, then—he has lace ruffles to his coat and a naked woman painted on his snuff box—What? He only holds his hands up when you ask? Well, then, go ask your friends on the chapel-walls—maybe they'll give you a pair of shoes—though Saint Francis, for that matter, was the father of the discalced, and would doubtless ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... He had forgotten that he had promised to save her. He had forgotten that he meant to snuff out as many lives as might stand between her and freedom. The very remembrance sheered off his morbid introspection. She made a difference. How strange for him to realize that! He felt grateful to her. He had been forced into outlawry; she ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey

... almost more resplendent than it is to-day." Her tone conveyed a spice of gentle mockery. "You were wearing, I am sure of it, the thin gold chain you are wearing to-day, and yet I had never seen it until this morning!" This chain, with the gold watch and gold snuff-box set with garnets (Casanova was fingering it as she spoke), were the only trinkets of value still left to him. "An old man, looking like a beggar, opened the carriage door. It was Lorenzi. As for you, Casanova, you were young, quite young, younger even than you seemed to me in those ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler

... usual things—watches, rings, snuff-boxes, hair-ornaments, curios of minor value, and a few stones of bad colour. But the men crowded round me and extolled their wares like the hucksters of Europe, and beseeched me to buy in a most anxious manner. They would sell cheap, very cheap, they confessed, at the present moment, because ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... tobacco, but tobacco mixed with other things—something like the cheap cigars which you English are said to smoke!" replied Ravonino with something of a humorous twinkle in his eyes. "But we don't smoke. We only snuff. In making our snuff we first dry the tobacco leaves and grind them to powder. Then to this we add the ashes of the leaves of a sweet-smelling herb, the mixture being twice as much tobacco as ashes; a small quantity of potash or salt ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne

... character, as well as one of the sources of his influence, was already to a certain extent gratified. The boy was so ready in making verses, that his masters themselves found amusement in practising upon his youthful talent. Little Arouet's snuff box had been confiscated because he had passed it along from hand to, hand in class; when he asked for it back from Father Poree, who was always indulgent towards him, the rector required an application in ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... galloped all the way to Battery before he was stopped, only his was to be a better one with more shy in it, said Silas Rhett ought to be tied on next time. Then old Mr. Pinckney came in and shewed us a musical snuff-box and we went home, and driving back Mary kicked me on the shin by axident and I pinched her and she didn't cry till we'd got home, then she began to roar and mother said it was my ungovernable temper, and I said I wished I ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... cultivate these beautiful and delicious fruits we always have the power of giving pleasure to others, and he's a churl and she a pale reflection of Xantippe who does not covet this power. The faces of our guests brighten as they snuff from afar the delicate aroma. Our vines can furnish gifts that our friends will ever welcome; and by means of their products we can pay homage to genius that will be far more grateful than commonplace compliments. I have seen a letter from the Hon. Wm. C. Bryant, which is ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe

... thousand more various directions than she ever did before. Miss Prim, agitated in every limb, cracked her fan into twenty pieces. Miss Gawky, who had unfortunately been initiated by the chamber maid in the art of snuff-taking, plied her box with more zeal than ever. Miss Languish actually fainted, and was with some difficulty conveyed into the air. Such was the confusion occasioned in the ball at Southampton, by the election ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin

... reflection that he possessed girls, he felt that he quite liked them. In his own fashion he was fond of Verena; and once when Briar had a very bad cold he sat with her for a very few minutes, and recommended her to try snuff. He did not wish to make his children unhappy, and he thought that the advent of Miss Tredgold would have that effect on them. But, after all, a determined woman like her must be humored; and what were the children compared to his own most ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade

... joined in the wiry old lady, bobbing up and down like a miniature figure moved by the unseen hand of the showman. "Allow me, sir!" And she gravely tendered him a huge snuff-box of tortoise shell, which he declined; whereupon ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... Grain of Snuff should happen to fall on the Lady's Bosom, wipe it off with your Fingers; and if none fall, wipe off that none. Take every Opportunity to be as officious in her Service as possible. If she drop her Fan or Gloves, presently take them up; for ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding

... keeping. The mixture of "canny" counsel and pious invocation has frequently a droll effect: as when the advice to "give the custom-house officers what I told you, and at Calais more, if you have much Scotch snuff;" and "to drink small Rhenish to keep you cool, that is, if you like it," is rounded off by the ejaculation, "So God in Heaven prosper and go along with you!" Letter after letter did he send them, full ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... him-I blush for my folly,-with laughing; yet I could not help it; for, added to the man's stately foppishness, (and he actually took snuff between every three words) when I looked around at Lord Orville, I saw such extreme surprise in his face,-the cause of which appeared so absurd, that I could not for my life ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... eventually handed something to the foremost native, whereat he and his companions turned and began to reclimb the hill. As we went on our way, I inquired the reason of the men barring our path. "Oh," my man said, "it is simply a question of snuff." "Snuff," I exclaimed, in astonishment. "Yes; that was all they wanted—a little tobacco powder to chew." Here was a possible adventure that seemed as if it were going to end in smoke, and snuff was ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various

... bankers, the merchant charges no interest upon the capital he advances, but he is paid nevertheless. For every pound of bacon, meal, and flour, for every gallon of molasses, for every yard of cloth, for every plug of tobacco or tin of snuff which the customer consumes during the spring and summer, an advanced price is charged to him on the merchant's books. With thousands of these merchants selling to hundreds of thousands of farmers over a wide area, it is of course impossible to state the average difference between credit and cash ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson

... but not the table, was decorated with flowers, and singers, often placed in a gallery at one end, were employed the whole time. A gentleman usher acted as butler, and a yeoman was always at hand to keep out strange dogs, snuff candles, and light to bed the guests, who were not always in a condition to find their way upstairs without his help. The hours at this time were nine or ten o'clock for dinner (except on fast-days, when it was at noon), and three or four for supper. Two meals a day were thought sufficient ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt

... daylight. I'll send no man away because he's stupid: if Billy Taft, the idiot, wanted to learn anything, I'd not refuse to teach him. But I'll not throw away good knowledge on people who think they can get it by the sixpenn'orth, and carry it away with 'em as they would an ounce of snuff. So never come to me again, if you can't show that you've been working with your own heads, instead of thinking that you can pay for mine to work for you. That's the last word I've got ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... breastknots became at this time conspicuous articles of female attire in private assemblies. The ladies also showed considerable zeal in contributing plate and other articles for the use of the Chevalier at the palace, and in raising pecuniary subsidies for him. Many a posset-dish and snuff-box, many a treasured necklace and repeater, many a jewel which had adorned its successive generations of family beauties, was at this time sold or laid in pledge, to raise a little money for the service ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun

... must have been some in the book. The victim of these remarks looked severely at the culprit, but all in vain; she was not to be suppressed with a frown. She remarked that Saul had a hymn-book that made you sneeze, and she asked him why, and he said it was the snuff. ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... made a very wise reflection, which was that it is never agreeable to have it said that a man, whoever he may be, threw himself into the water on leaving your house. He therefore coughed once more, took his snuff-box, cast a careless glance upon ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... he blew, and she thinned to a thread, "One puff More's enough To blow her to snuff! One good puff more where the last was bred, And glimmer, glimmer, ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... we staid. Indeed, I began to fear we staid too long, and told him so; but he assured me the apartment was ours for a month or two, if we pleased. During our stay, he admitted me into his apartments, and filled my box with delicious Spanish snuff, and shewed us every attention we would wish, and much more than, as unrecommended strangers, we could expect. All the poor who come here are fed gratis for three days, and all the sick received ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse

... same. When I was a child, I could not tear myself away from Isshur. I was always puzzling out the one question—What was Isshur like before he was Isshur? That is to say, before he got those terrifying eyebrows, and the big hooked nose that was always filled with snuff, and the big brass beard that started by being thick and heavy, and ended up in a few, long straggling, terrifying hairs. How did he look when he was a child, ran about barefoot, went to "Cheder," and was beaten ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich

... ruffles and bag-wigs and spotless silk stockings, and invariably exhibit shapely calves above their silver shoe-buckles; where you may come in St. James's Park upon a portly personage with a star, taking an alfresco pinch of snuff after that leisurely style in which a pinch of snuff should be taken, so as not to endanger a lace cravat or a canary-coloured vest; where you may seat yourself on a bench by Rosamond's Pond in company with a tremulous mask ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson

... Cricket!" he cried, "upon this mound sit and take snuff! Beetle, do thou beat a drum. And do thou crawl, O Bug, the bun-like, beneath the ash, and spread abroad this news of me, the Spider, the wrestler, the hero bold—that the Spider, the wrestler, the hero bold, no longer in the world exists; that ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... viper brood, Which o'er the land hath spread its noisome stain, While shudd'ring virtue weeps, but weeps in vain? And (O shame's nauseous dregs!) did noble lips Here taste that stream with epicurean sips? And mitred heads, as o'er its scum they bent, Snuff the rank steam, and chuckle at the scent?— My soul is sick!—I turn with sated ear, And find a cordial in my brethren here. Peers who their conscience to no market bring; Respect themselves, their country, ...
— The Ghost of Chatham; A Vision - Dedicated to the House of Peers • Anonymous

... years old at that time, the marquis was as straight as ever, and most aristocratically lean. He had a perfectly magnificent nose, which absorbed immense quantities of snuff; his mouth was large, but well furnished; and his brilliant eyes shone with that restless cunning which betrayed the amateur, who has continually to deal with sharp and eager dealers in curiosities ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... or they should taste of my thong, and proceeded, as well as I could, to comfort Mrs. Fitzsimons under her misfortunes. 'Had she lost much?' 'Everything: her purse, containing upwards of a hundred guineas; her jewels, snuff-boxes, watches, and a pair of diamond shoe-buckles of the Captain's.' These mishaps I sincerely commiserated; and knowing her by her accent to be an Englishwoman, deplored the difference that existed between the two countries, and said that in OUR country ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... unfailing gun, and after them, when further south, the golden orange shall delight her thirsty soul, while all the sugar-cane she can chew shall be gathered for her. Add to these the luxury of plenty of snuff with which to rub her dainty gums, with the promise of tobacco enough to keep her pipe always full, and it will be hard to find among this class a fair one with sufficient strength of mind to resist such an offer; so she promises ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop

... Mrs. Gorman Stanley. "I'm all a-gog to hear. It's no joke to order a handsome dress for a chit of a girl's wedding, and then not wear it after all. I meant to get new curtains for my back parlor, heavy snuff-colored moreen, going a great bargain, but I had to buy the dress instead. Well, you'll let me ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade

... services conducted in the gorgeous side chapels; they certainly seemed but a mechanical form of prayer, little less than sacrilegious; the bishops, priests, and choir hastening to get through the formula—those who were not yawning taking snuff. Indeed, there was a dreadful absence of real Christian humility and reverence. One day we arrived in time to witness a High Church ceremonial—it was the anniversary of St. Peter. Cardinal Howard officiated instead of the ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... am going to snuff out each of the four candles in the center of this table by shooting the wick away. You follow ...
— The Eyes Have It • James McKimmey

... hair-weavers, hat and cap makers, hose-weavers, workers in India rubber, lamp-makers, laundresses, leechers, milliners, morocco-workers, nurses, paper-hangers, physicians, picklers and preservers, saddlers and harness-makers, shoemakers, soda-room keepers, snuff and cigar-makers, stock and suspender-makers, truss-makers, typers and stereotypers, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... place between Mr. Pickwick and Samuel Weller, at which his Parent assists—An old Gentleman in a snuff-coloured Suit arrives unexpectedly ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... smiled, paused, took a pinch of snuff, and then said good-humouredly: "Although I am not a prophet, I know one thing; this war will be followed by an European Congress, and a Congress about Italian Affairs is even worse for us than war. There ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... that bandage on. You should be sharp; you should know all about it, girl, by this time, and not let those muscles stiffen. I need not tell you the mouth shuts as easily as this snuff-box, if you only take it in time.—I suppose, Mrs. Julaper, you'll send to Jos Fringer for the poor fellow's outfit. Fringer is a very proper man—there ain't a properer und-aker in England. I always re-mmend Fringer—in Church-street ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... remarked and applauded, holding one hand as a snuff-box for the fingers of the other to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the very first snuff he got ov it, he cried out, the dear man, "Blessed Vargin, but it has the divine smell!" and crossed himself and the bottle half ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various

... the assumption (for it is nothing more) that these birds act by some unknown thing called instinct, as it might be called x or y; and are, in fact, just like the singing birds which spring out of snuff-boxes, only so much better made, that they can eat, grow, and propagate their species. The imputation of acting by instinct cuts both ways. We, too, are creatures of instinct. We breathe and eat by instinct: but we talk ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... thanky'," said Lithicum, with a broad grin; "the truth is, I clean forgot my tobacco. I knowed you wasn't a chawin' man, but yore uncle is, an' he mought have left a piece of a plug lyin' round. My old woman tried to git me to use her snuff as a make-shift, but lawsy me! the blamed powdery truck jest washes down my throat like leaves in a mill-race. I never could see how women kin set an' rub an' rub the'r gums with it like they do. I reckon it's jest a sort ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben

... point, surrounded by a small white ring, the former is the chigoe, or sand- flea, and the latter the eggs which it has deposited in the flesh. The first thing to be done is to loosen the skin all round as far as the white skin is visible; the whole deposit is then extracted, and a little snuff strewn in the empty space. The blacks perform this operation ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous

... behind whose chair hangs a list of the presents, one Farinelli, an Italian singer, received the next day after his first performance at the Opera House; amongst which, there is notice taken of one, which he received from the hero of our piece, thus: "A gold snuff-box, chased, with the story of Orpheus charming the brutes, by J. Rakewell, esq." By these mementos of extravagance and pride, (for gifts of this kind proceed oftener from ostentation than generosity,) and by the engraved frontispiece to a poem, dedicated to our fashionable ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler

... forehead carelessly, is caught by a comb at the back and falls in curls on her shoulders. A prettier picture could not be wished for, as she looks around with sparkling eyes, eager for the dance to begin. There stands calm Dena in snuff-colored silk, looking so immeasurably the superior of her partner, who, I fancy, rather feels that she is the better man of the two, from his nervous way of shifting from one foot to the other, without ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... some travelling company. The plot of the story, as far as Charteris could follow it, dealt with a theatrical tour in Dublin, where some person or persons unknown had, with malice prepense, scattered several pounds of snuff on the stage previous to a performance of Hamlet; and, according to the 'character', when the ghost of Hamlet's father sneezed steadily throughout his great scene, there was not a dry eye in the house. The 'character' ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... fiery coursers fling Their necks aloft, and snuff the morning wind, Till the fleet moments bring The expected sign to spring Along their path, and leave these ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... cooking and washing for the family is found, but when the master's work is done, the slave must find wood for himself if he has a fire. I have repeatedly known slave children kept the whole winter's evening, sitting on the stair-case in a cold entry, just to be at hand to snuff candles or hand a tumbler of water from the side-board, or go on errands from one room to another. It may be asked why they were not permitted to stay in the parlor, when they would be still more at hand. I answer, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... coffee for beverage; a choice not easy to make, the two were so surprisingly alike. I found that I could sleep after the coffee and lay awake after the tea; which is proof conclusive of some chemical disparity; and even by the palate I could distinguish a smack of snuff in the former from a flavour of boiling and dish-cloths in the second. As a matter of fact, I have seen passengers, after many sips, still doubting which had been supplied them. In the way of eatables at the same meal we were gloriously favoured; for in addition ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... seventeenth century the Parisian rogues availed themselves of the regulations against the use of snuff to pillage the snuff-takers. As the sale of this article was forbidden by law to any but grocers and apothecaries, and as even they could only retail it to persons provided with the certificate of a medical man, the annoyance of such restrictions was ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... fell heavily, his helmet rolled in the gutter, and immediately a head leaned out of the carriage to see what had happened—a large head, pale and fat, with a tuft of hair on the forehead: it was Napoleon; he held his hand up as if about taking a pinch of snuff, and said a few words roughly. The officer galloping by the side of the coach bent down to reply; and his master took his snuff and turned the corner, while the shouts redoubled and the cannons roared louder ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... enforced a migration to a cheaper and meaner house. In Clover Street (then Clover Lane) the little Dickens went to a school kept by a Mr. William Giles, who years afterwards sent to him, when he was halfway through with Pickwick, a silver snuff-box inscribed to the "Inimitable Boz". To the Mitre Inn, in the Chatham High Street, where Nelson had many times put up, Dickens was often brought by his father to recite or sing, standing on a table, for the amusement of parties of friends. He speaks of it in the "Holly ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin

... address in which even his apology for little speaking overflowed with irrepressible humour. He would try, he said, like Falstaff, "but with a modification almost as large as himself," less to speak himself than to be the cause of speaking in others. "Much in this manner they exhibit at the door of a snuff-shop the effigy of a Highlander with an empty mull in his hand, who, apparently having taken all the snuff he can carry, and discharged all the sneezes of which he is capable, politely invites his friends and patrons to step in and try what they can do in ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... a pinch of snuff," said Jean. "Do you mind, Louis, how he leapt off his horse, and dashed through the trenches, that first night at ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... were about to sacrifice one of the bottles on board when an idea occurred to Uncle Prudent. He took snuff, as we know, and we may pardon this fault in an American, who might do worse. And as a snuff-taker he possessed a snuff-box, which was now empty. This box was made of aluminum. If it was thrown overboard ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne

... most illustrious poet!' answered M. Louet; 'I never smoke. It was not the fashion in my time. Smoking and boots were introduced by the Cossacks. I always wear shoes, and am faithful to my snuff-box.' ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... say so to Mr. Carlyle in the first chapter of this history. The earl was the one who might be supposed to know best. Whatever may have been Lady Mount Severn's malady, she—to give you the phrase that was in people's mouth's at the time—"went out like the snuff of a candle." It was now the turn of Lady Isabel. She had no more decided disorder than the countess had had, yet death had marked her. She felt that it had, and in its approach she dreaded not, as she once had done, the consequences that must ensue, did ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... then a look that had in it more of annoyance than affection. He was not now a very pleasant lord to look on, whatever he might once have been. He was red-faced and blear-eyed, and his nose, partly from the snuff which he took in large quantity, was much injured in shape and colour: a closer description the historical muse declines. His eyes had once been blue, but tobacco, potations, revellings day and night—everything but tears, had washed from them almost all the colour. It added ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... cried the sea-nymphs; "we dare not go with you upon the dry land. We are apt to grow faint, unless at every breath we can snuff up the salt breeze of the ocean. And don't you see how careful we are to let the surf wave break over us every moment or two, so as to keep ourselves comfortably moist? If it were not for that, we should soon look like bunches of uprooted ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... town of Plymouth and its fortifications, and the Hoe; and then you will come to the Devil's Point, round which the tide runs devilish strong; and then you will see the New Victualling Office,—about which Sir James Gordon used to stump all day, and take a pinch of snuff from every man who carried a box, which all were delighted to give, and he was delighted to receive, proving how much pleasure may be communicated merely by a pinch of snuff—and then you will see Mount Wise ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... watches; in the period of the prosperity of Geneva, this trade was calculated to afford employment to five or six thousand persons, but at present it is much reduced. There are a considerable number of goldsmiths, and the ingenuity of the Genevese, produces very curious musical-watches, snuff-boxes, and seals, many of which are sent to Paris and London, where they find a ready sale; they are sent likewise to Persia and to America, there are considerable manufactures also of calico, muslin, &c. and a good deal of banking business is transacted. Perhaps there is no example of ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard

... that the rigorous enforcement of etiquette and the general training in good manners had not done away with eccentricity of behavior. The Count of Osmont, for instance, was continually fidgeting with anything that might come under his hand, and could not see a snuff-box without ladling out the snuff with three fingers, and sprinkling it over his clothes like a Swiss porter. He sometimes varied this pleasant performance by putting the box itself under his nose, to the great disgust of whomever happened to be its owner. He once spent a ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... and which never appear ridiculous till they are out of fashion. In the reign of Henry III. of France, they could not exist without an abundant use of comfits. All the world, the grave and the gay, carried in their pockets a comfit-box, as we do snuff-boxes. They used them even on the most solemn occasions; when the Duke of Guise was shot at Blois, he was found with his comfit-box in his hand.—Fashions indeed have been carried to so extravagant a length, as to have become a public offence, and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... they are first ripe, pick them off carefully, wipe them clean, put them into snuff bottles, stop them up tight so that no air can get to them, nor water; put nothing into the bottles but plumbs, put the bottles into cold water, hang them over the fire, let them heat slowly, let the water boil slowly for half an hour, when ...
— American Cookery - The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables • Amelia Simmons

... a fool, Senor. We go to prison for no man who is our enemy. Pouf! When the hour comes I snuff out your life like that." And Pablo ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine

... home and native land," on the line of temperance. We have given all the instruction and illustrations we could, and the little ones are becoming leaders of the older members in the families. One little boy urged his old grandmother to stop using snuff, and she has given it up after using it more than twoscore years. She said he used to say, "Don't chew, grandma; the teachers say it is poison." Some mothers who have been in the habit of using ruinous alcohol medicines for their children, assured me they would stop it, after seeing the ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various

... a prosperous road for thee. Thou seest with thine eyes, thou hearest with thine ears, thou speakest with thy mouth, thou walkest with thy legs. Thy soul hath been made divine in the Tuat, so that it may change itself into any form it pleaseth. Thou canst snuff at will the odours of the holy Acacia of Anu (An, or Heliopolis). Thou wakest each day and seest the light of Ra; thou appearest upon the earth each day, and the 'Book of Breathings' of Thoth is thy ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge

... who lived where we could, and got on how we could, for some days, during which we were always in the way of two or three young women, who had rarely shown themselves before, and were so continually in the midst of dust that I sneezed almost as much as if Salem House had been a great snuff-box. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... was only deferred till the next morning, when I was summoned to my mother's chamber, where she sat up in bed, with her best Flanders-lace nightcap and ruffles on, her coral rosary blessed by the Pope, her snuff-box with the Queen's portrait, and her big fan that had belonged to Queen Marie de Medicis, so that I knew something serious was in hand; and, besides, my brothers Solivet and Walwyn sat on chairs by the head of her bed. Margaret ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... introduced to the physician as the teacher newly arrived from London. The doctor was a stout good-humoured gentleman of the middle height, with a cheerful and healthy-looking countenance. He was, in truth, a jovial man, as well as a great snuff-taker. The incumbent offered me a chair, and placed a decanter of wine before me. His own glass of port was untouched, and he looked serious ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... back again; but you get home at last—there's always light enough for that." After a short pause he said, quite abruptly, "Tom, do you want to live to be old?" I said I had never thought on the subject; and he went on, "I dread it more than I can say. To feel one's powers going, and to end in snuff and stink. Look at the last days of Scott and Wordsworth, and Southey." I suggested St. John. "Yes," he said, "that's the right thing, and will do for Bunsen, and great, tranquil men like him. The longer they live the better for all. But for an eager, fiery nature like mine, with fierce ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... the Venus de' Medici, I could nowhere see, and indeed was almost afraid to see it; for I somewhat apprehended the extinction of another of those lights that shine along a man's pathway, and go out in a snuff the instant he comes within eyeshot of the fulfilment of his hopes. My European experience has extinguished many such. I was pretty well contented, therefore, not to find the famous statue in the whole of my long journey from ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... corn into a hopper, of which a sturdy Irishman was turning the crank. The old admiral kept his hired man busy and enjoyed his own work. He was of small figure, always wore an old-fashioned blue swallow-tail with brass buttons, took snuff, and would laugh and shake until his weatherbeaten face was purple over some of his reminiscences of the early days of ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis

... obscure,—if his natural subtilty of reflection had been less, or if he had been endowed with inferior powers in the sublime architecture of impassioned expression,—then might he as well have smoked a meerschaum, taken snuff or grog or any other stimulant, as to have gone out of his way for the more refined ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... heart: To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering, When they judg'd without skill he was still hard of hearing: When they talk'd of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff, 145 He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... and think of your own sins, young man," he answered, with a grim smile, and taking a pinch of snuff, while at that very moment a flash of lightning, I don't know from which storm, struck the ground within thirty paces of me. That was enough for me, I took to my heels, and as I went I heard old Indaba-zimbi's ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard

... told her of the sudden death of Mrs. Howard and Frank, an expression of "What? That all?" passed over her face, and she said, "Dear me, and so the poor critter's gone? Hand me my snuff, Billy. Both died last night, did they? Hain't you nothin' else ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes

... ordered by those who were obliged to forego the originals. He sold to Catherine of Russia a series of articles of furniture for 20,000 roubles, and the Empress added a present of 5000 roubles and a gold snuff-box. The King of Prussia was his constant protector, and in February, 1792, gave him the title of Secret Councillor, and in November of the same year named him Royal Agent on the Lower Rhine. The Revolution ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson

... verdict that "he, the said Miles Syndercombe, a certain poisoned powder through the nose of him, the said Miles, into the head of him, the said Miles, feloniously, wilfully, and of malice aforethought, did snuff and draw; by reason of which snuffing and drawing so as aforesaid, into the head of him, the said Miles, he the said Miles, himself did mortally poison," &c.—Ibid. 859. The Levellers and royalists maintained that he was strangled by order of ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... publicly her faith in St. John Long: she swore by Doctor Buchan, she took quantities of Gambouge's Universal Medicine, and whole boxfuls of Parr's Life Pills. She has cured a multiplicity of headaches by Squinstone's Eye-snuff; she wears a picture of Hahnemann in her bracelet and a lock of Priessnitz's hair in a brooch. She talked about her own complaints and those of her CONFIDANTE for the time being, to every lady in the room successively, from our hostess down to Miss Wirt, taking them into corners, and whispering ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray

... tell her that I begin, as people are wont to do, to look upon my future profession with great partiality. I no longer see it in so disadvantageous a light. Instead of figuring a merchant as a middle-aged man, with a bob wig, a rough beard, in snuff-coloured clothes, grasping a guinea in his red hand, I conceive a comely young man, with a tolerable pig-tail, wielding a pen with all the noble fierceness of the Duke of Marlborough brandishing a truncheon upon a sign-post, surrounded ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... with deepest courtesies, and soon she and the lawyer, with the notary, a little dried-up man who took snuff freely from a golden, bejeweled box, and sneezed so violently thereafter that Virgilia, sitting alone in her room, heard him and laughed outright, had arranged the whole affair. Virgilia was only a child and did not dream that in another part of the house, she was ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark

... meals; receiving visitors standing, pacing back and forth in his salon, his hands twitching in nervous uncertainty; changing the position of the armchairs, rearranging the furniture, suddenly stopping to hunt about his person for a snuff-box or a pair of glasses that he never found; turning his pockets inside out, pulling his velvet house-cap now down over one eye, now back over the crown of his head, or again, throwing it into the air with a shout ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... their perch behind the vehicle, flung open the door, and lowered a short flight of steps. A very stately gentleman, richly dressed, with a handkerchief of point in one hand and a jeweled snuff-box in the other, descended the steps, placing one shapely leg in its maroon-colored stocking before the other with the mannered grace of ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... your grandmother's cap isn't all of her that's come down to you," said he, tapping his snuff-box and looking at her with a curious twinkle in his eyes. "What do you call yourself? Haven't you some variations of this tongue-twisting appellative to serve for ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... Quebec expedition. As there was also no danger attached to the enterprise, all the more likely that he would succeed. Hill sailed with Admiral Sir John Leake and took peaceable possession of the town and forts. For this he was appointed Governor of Dunkirk, and while there he sent Swift a gold snuff-box as a present, "the finest that ever you saw," as Swift wrote to Stella: See also vol. v., p. 80, of this ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... was a queer place, I thought, with higher pews in it than a church,—and with people hanging over the pews looking on,—and with mighty Justices (one with a powdered head) leaning back in chairs, with folded arms, or taking snuff, or going to sleep, or writing, or reading the newspapers,—and with some shining black portraits on the walls, which my unartistic eye regarded as a composition of hardbake and sticking-plaster. Here, in a corner my indentures were duly signed ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... saying is. What a mouth he makes whenever he goes for to talk his gibberage!—He screws it up for all the world like a pickled oyster. I must have a care I don't get some of that snuff out ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low

... My dear sir, I observe that you are still lamentably ignorant of the revolution that war brings into international relations. In war, where the national interest is concerned, the individual is nothing. If he or she must be removed, puff! you snuff the offender out. Afterwards you can always pay or apologize, or do ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... stretching out into the morning sun and stalked over to investigate. After a careful inspection of the hole he settled down with his paws tucked under him to watch. Ed took a flat round can from his pocket, lined his lip frugally with snuff, and sat down on the up-ended bucket to watch too. At the moment, that seemed the likeliest thing ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams

... doors, and the big brass andirons in the parlour, and the brass candlesticks on the parlour mantel- piece. When at last she got through, and came to the fire to warm herself, she found her grandmother lamenting that her snuff-box was empty, and asking her daughter to ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell

... was sitting before a deal table, littered with papers strewn round a central bottle of ink, in which a steel pen stuck upright. The Judge wore his usual dilapidated business suit of brown cheviot that had once been snuff-coloured and was now a streaky drab. On his feet, stretched out under the magisterial table till they joined the jury, a pair of moccasins; on his grizzled head a cowboy hat, set well back. He could spit farther than any man in Minook, and by the same ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... my Lady Toss-up? I shou'd hardly have known her, but by her down-right English Air—why no body minds her—Sir Harry, give the Lady a Pinch of sweet Snuff.—[Aside.] She's horridly concern'd at my Attractions, yet too proud to shew it, and looks as disconsolately gay, as a Maid of Thirty at the Wedding of her youngest Sister; how I love ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker

... during the next five minutes in such a state of suppressed laughter, that he could not have taken a steady aim to have saved his life. Its sense of smell was evidently gratified, for on leaping to the ground it took a powerful snuff, and then began to devour the salmon with immense gusto. But the first mouthful produced an expression of countenance that could not be misunderstood. It coughed, spluttered, and sneezed, or at least gave vent to something resembling these sounds, and drew back from the fish with ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne

... genuine knowledge of the spirit of the Greek mind, and the peculiar idioms of the language, and more enthusiasm for it, than many a poor fellow who has stumbled blindly through the originals with the bayonet of the tutor at his heels, and his eyes and ears full of the Scotch snuff ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... her best," said Mr. Mount, snuff-taking in graceful Court fashion, "for he hath loved a dozen since; but she is a shrew, and can rave and bluster at him till he would hang her with jewels, and give her his crown itself to quieten her furies. 'Tis the pretty ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... paid him his charge, he told me to go to the cow-pen after night, and get some fresh cow manure, and mix it with red pepper and white people's hair, all to be put into a pot over the fire, and scorched until it could be ground into snuff. I was then to sprinkle it about my master's bed-room, in his hat and boots, and it would prevent him from ever abusing me in any way. After I got it all ready prepared, the smallest pinch of it scattered over a room, was enough to make a horse sneeze from the ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb



Words linked to "Snuff" :   touch, pinch, tinge, baccy, smelling, snuff it, snuff out, jot, chromatic, chukker-brown, mite, speck, rappee, snuff-colour, mummy-brown, snuff-color, inspire, smell, snuff user, inhale, hint, candlewick



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