▪ I. snuffer1
(ˈsnʌfə(r))
Also 5–6 snoffer.
[f. snuff v.1]
1. a. An instrument used for snuffing, or snuffing out, candles, etc. In later use only in plur. form (also a pair of snuffers).
| α 1465 Mann. & Househ. Exp. (Roxb.) 492 Item, the same day my master bowt a snoffer to snoffe wyth candeles. 1517–8 Rec. St. Mary at Hill (1905) 296 Paid..for Snoffers of plate for to put owte the tapurs. 1535 Coverdale Exod. xxv. 38 Snoffers and out quenchers of pure golde. 1574 Churchw. Acc. St. Edmund's, Sarum (Wilts. Rec. Soc.) 82 The makynge of the Snoffer to serve candelles in the churche. |
| β 1538 Elyot, Emunctorium, an instrumente [etc.].., a snuffer. 1596 Harington Metam. Ajax (1814) 106 Like to the snuffers or extinguishers wherewith we put out a candle. 1656 W. Dugard tr. Comenius' Gate Lat. Unl. 225 The snuffers ready at hand, to snuff the wick ever and anon. 1687 Chernock in Magd. Coll. (O.H.S.) 232 Why did you tear the Buttery book with the snuffers? 1747 Franklin Lett. Wks. 1887 II. 72 We light candles, just blown out, by drawing a spark among the smoke between the wire and snuffers. 1764 J. Ferguson Lect. iii. 33 To this kind of lever may be reduced several sorts of instruments, such as scissars, pinchers, snuffers. 1860 Mayhew Upper Rhine Introd. 3 Here it is that our eyes are still cheered with the sight of a pair of snuffers. 1885 Athenæum 7 Feb. 189 In [Hogarth's] ‘Night’ the small man..is known by the snuffers hanging at his girdle to be a drawer at a tavern. |
| fig. 1630 S. Lennard tr. Charron's Wisd. i. Pref. 6 Sounding him to the quick, entring into him with a candle and a snuffer. 1642 Howell For. Trav. (Arb.) 77 If these Lights grow dim, there is a Trienniall Snuffer for them. 1827 Hare Guesses Ser. i. (1873) 10 A critic should be a pair of snuffers. He is oftener an extinguisher. |
b. transf. The finger and thumb as used for clearing or wiping the nose.
| 1843 Marryat M. Violet xxvii, Employing..the pair of snuffers which natural instinct has supplied him with. |
2. One who snuffs candles. (Cf. candle-snuffer 2.)
| 1611 Cotgr., Moucheur, a snyter, wiper, snuffer. 1722–7 Boyer Dict. Royal i. s.v. Moucheur, The Snuffer, He that snuffs the Candles at the Play-house. 1761 Churchill Rosciad Poems 1769 I. 14 Then came..snuffer, sweeper, shifter, soldier, mute. 1762 Foote Orator i. Wks. 1799 I. 191 What is all this business about here? Snuffer. Can't say, Sir. 1814 W. Wilson Hist. Dissent. Churches iv. 78 Betty Gray had been a snuffer of candles at the playhouse. |
3. attrib. and Comb. (in sense 1), as snuffer(s)-box, snuffer-dish, snuffer-handle, snuffer-pan, snuffer-stand, snuffer-tray; snuffers-maker.
| 1677 Lond. Gaz. No. 1260/4 Two large silver Candlesticks, and Snuffer Pan. 1686 Ibid. No. 2203/4 A Silver Snuffer⁓dish and Snuffers chain'd. 1773 Lond. Chron. 7 Sept. 248/3 The following articles were assayed and marked;..bottle stands, snuffer pans [etc.]. 1830 Galt Lawrie T. ii. i. (1849) 42 He took his cigar out of his mouth,..trimming it on the edge of the snuffer-tray. 1843 Ainsworth's Mag. III. 180 Spectacle cases and snuffer-stands. 1844 Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl. VII. 130 Moulded per gross, like..snuffer-dishes, inkstands, metal buttons, and brads! 1858 Simmonds Dict. Trade, Snuffers'-maker, a manufacturer of metal snuffers. 1898 G. B. Shaw Man of Destiny 203 With a couple of candles alight, and a broad snuffers tray in the other. 1952 B. & T. Hughes Three Centuries of Eng. Domestic Silver v. 82 The upright snuffer stand, with a vertical socket to receive the snuffer box, was a late Charles II innovation. Ibid. 84 An immense amount of ingenuity now began to be lavished upon the ornamentation of snuffer handles. 1960 H. Hayward Handbk. Antique Coll. 260/1 Snuffer-tray, oblong or oval tray with or without small feet and scroll and ring handle at side for holding snuffers. 1971 Country Life 10 June 1434/1 A snuffers tray inscribed four years after it was made ‘In Memory of Mrs. Jane Parsons, Oct. 11th, 1750’. |
▪ II. snuffer2
(ˈsnʌfə(r))
[f. snuff v.2]
1. One who snuffs, or who sniffs disdainfully.
| a 1610 Babington Wks. (1622) 102 Let all snuffers and brow-beaters of honest men consider this. 1648 Hexham ii, Een Snuyver, a Snuffer. |
† 2. slang or dial. In pl. The nostrils. Obs.
| a 1658 Cleveland Sing-song xxvi, Sybill so sweet, Whose Cheeks on each side of her Snuffers did meet, As round and as plump as a Codlin. 1703 Thoresby Let. to Ray (E.D.S.), Snuffers, for the nose, or nostrils. |
3. One who takes snuff.
| 1882 J. Snodgrass tr. Heine's Relig. & Philos. in Germany ii. 89 You know that he [sc. Frederick the Great] composed French verses,..was a prodigious snuffer, and believed in nothing but cannon. 1889 Gretton Memory's Harkback 99, I knew an elderly gentleman who was a great snuffer. 1903 R. Lawson in R. Wallace Life & Last Leaves 628 He was an inveterate snuffer. |
4. U.S. local. A porpoise.
| 1829 T. C. Haliburton Hist. & Statist. Acct. Nova-Scotia II. ix. 404 Fish—Whale Species... Snuffer. 1884 Goode Nat. Hist. Aquat. Anim. 14 On the Atlantic coast occurs most abundantly the little Harbor Porpoise, Phocæna brachycion Cope, known to the fishermen as ‘Puffer’, ‘Snuffer’, ‘Snuffing Pig’. |