snot

From Middle English snot, snotte, from Old English ġesnot, *snott, from Proto-West Germanic *snott, *snutt, from Proto-Germanic *snuttuz (“nasal mucus”), from the same base as snout. Related also to snite.

Cognate with North Frisian snot (“snot”), Saterland Frisian Snotte (“snot”), West Frisian snotte (“snot”), Dutch snot (“snot”), German Low German Snött (“snot”), dialectal German Schnutz (“snot”), Danish snot (“snot”), Norwegian snott (“snot”).

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: snŏt, IPA^(key): /snɒt/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /snɑt/
• Rhymes: -ɒt

snot (countable and uncountable, plural snots)

1. (informal, uncountable, sometimes slightly vulgar) Mucus, especially mucus from the nose.
   • c. 1948, George Orwell, Such, Such Were the Joys:

     Once, I remember, the little fair-haired boy had a choking fit at dinner, and a stream of snot ran out of his nose on to his plate in a way horrible to see.

2. (slang, countable) A contemptible child.
   • 2010, Ernest L. Rhodes, A Coal Miner's Family at Mooseheart, page 19:

     With no warning a gang of little snots — none larger or older than I was — threw me to the ground, pulled my knickers below my knees — without any explanation, and allowed me to get up.

3. (slang, obsolete) A mean fellow.
4. (Northern England, dialectal) The flamed out wick of a candle.

   Synonym: snuff

5. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (US ?, figurative, informal) A blemish or encumbrance that one exercises out of something.
   • 2019 December 6, Lee Boyce, “4 Reasons You’ve Got No Rear Delts”, in T-Nation‎^[1]:

     Working the snot out of shoulders at full flexion and extension end ranges with isometrics can not only be the hidden key to creating more available range of motion for immobile, injury-prone shoulders, but also to help develop dormant muscle groups like the rear delts, which otherwise get little to no play in exercises intended for them.

• booger (US) (but note this noun is countable)

snot (third-person singular simple present snots, present participle snotting, simple past and past participle snotted)

1. (ambitransitive, informal) To blow, wipe, or clear (the nose).
2. (intransitive, informal) To sniff or snivel; to produce snot, to have a runny nose.
   • 2014, Caitlin Moran, How to Build a Girl, Ebury, published 2015, page 148:

     I was snotting all into my mouth and having to eat it, silently shuddering.

• NOTs, SOTN, Ston, TNOs, nots, onst, tons

From Middle Low German snotte.

snot n (definite singular snottet) (uncountable)

1. snot (nasal mucus) (informal in English, not in Danish)

From Middle Dutch snotte, from Old Dutch *snotto, from Proto-Germanic *snuttuz.

• IPA^(key): /snɔt/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: snot
• Rhymes: -ɔt

snot n (uncountable)

1. snot, nasal mucus

• Sont

• snotte, snott, snothe

From Old English ġesnot, *snott, from Proto-Germanic *snuttuz.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsnɔt(ə)/

snot (uncountable) (rare)

1. Snot, mucus (matter accreting in the nose)
2. The remnants of a burnt and expired candle wick.

• English: snot
• Scots: snot

• “snotte, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 26 February 2019.