snivel

Etymology

Old English *snyflan, also attested in the verbal noun snyflung (“mucus”) from snofl, ultimately from the root of snout. Akin to sniff, snuff..

verb

1. (intransitive) To breathe heavily through the nose while it is congested with nasal mucus.
   With stinking breath, swart-cheeks, and hanging chaps; With wrinkled neck; and stooping as she goes, With driveling mouth, and with a sniveling nose. 1611, Josuah Sylvester (translator), Du Bartas His Deuine Weekes and Workes, London, Book 4, Week 2, Day 4, p. 623, […] a Hagg, a Fury by my side; With hollow, yellow teeth (or none perhaps)
   1794, Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia, London: J. Johnson, Volume 1, Section 16, Subsection 2, p. 149, […] in severe frosty weather, snivelling and tears are produced by the coldness and dryness of the air.
   […] he began to snivel, and wherever he tried to hide he was found out by the terrific explosions of his suppressed sneezes. 1937, J. R. R. Tolkien, chapter 9, in The Hobbit, New York: Random House, published 1982, page 187
2. (derogatory, intransitive) To cry while sniffling; to whine or complain while crying.
   Let things come to the Worst; when we have Overturned the Government;—Polluted the very Altar, with our MASTERS BLOOD—Cheated the Publick, &c. ’Tis but to Whine and Snivel to the People; tell them we were mis-led, by Cardinall Appetites; 1660, Roger L’Estrange, “No Fool to the Old Fool”, in A Short View of Some Remarkable Transactions, London: Henry Brome, page 95
   […] after a good deal of sniveling and sobbing, she owned, that so far from being an heiress of a great fortune, she was no other than a common woman of the town, who had decoyed me into matrimony […] 1748, Tobias Smollett, chapter 61, in The Adventures of Roderick Random, volume 2, London: J. Osborn, page 267
   I never snivel over trifles like that. 1868, Louisa May Alcott, chapter 15, in Little Women
   ANNE: Aunt Sara’s in the garden, snivelling in a deck chair. BASTON: What a hard child you are. ANNE: It’s no good being mushy, is it? It’s the truth that matters. and she is snivelling. BASTON: You could have said “crying.” ANNE: But crying’s quite a different thing. 1957, Graham Greene, The Potting Shed, New York: Viking, act 1, scene 1, page 17
3. (derogatory, transitive) To say (something) while sniffling or crying.
   I, the Socman, am shorn of my lands that you may snivel Latin and eat bread for which you never did hand’s turn. 1891, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 9, in The White Company

noun

1. The act of snivelling.
   So Parson Hugh, with Groan and Snivel Made half his Congregation drivel, 1692, John Dennis, “The Triumvirate: or, The Battle”, in Poems in Burlesque, London, page 2
   […] after a bit of a snivel, for you know I am a woman in these matters, I had her treated with all decency, and then committed her to Davy Jones’s locker; and for want of a chaplain, I said the burial service myself […] 1792, Charles Dibdin, chapter 5, in Hannah Hewit: or, The Female Crusoe, volume 1, London, page 50
2. Nasal mucus; snot.
   He did let his snot and snivel fall in his pottage […] 1653, Thomas Urquhart, transl., The First Book of the Works of Mr. Francis Rabelais, London: Richard Baddeley, Book 1, Chapter 11, p. 53
   1770, Thomas Bridges, A Burlesque Translation of Homer, London: S. Hooper, 3rd edition, Volume 2, Book 8, p. 44, In streams the blood and snivel flows From many a Grecian’s snotty nose,
   On quitting this den of furious heat, I got a sight of a lair, exceeding all the rest I had seen in Hell, but one, in frightful stinking filthiness, where was a herd of accursed drunken swine, disgorging and swallowing, swallowing and disgorging, continually and without rest, the most loathsome snivel. 1860, Ellis Wynne, translated by George Borrow, The Sleeping Bard; or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell, London: John Murray, page 86
   […] he ran his sleeve under his nose to stop the snivel. 1952, Flannery O’Connor, chapter 3, in Wise Blood, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, published 1962, page 59