snoof

Perhaps an alteration of sniff or snuff; or perhaps a blend of snort +‎ sniff.

snoof (third-person singular simple present snoofs, present participle snoofing, simple past and past participle snoofed)

1. To sniff around, usually in the search for food.

Probably coined by Galsworthy (see quotations).

snoof (comparative more snoof, superlative most snoof)

1. (humorous, nonstandard) Having lost the sense of smell.
   • 1928, John Galsworthy, Swan Song (A Modern Comedy part 3):

     Luckily, they're all ‘snoof’."
     "What?" said Michael […] .
     "It's a portmanteau syllable for 'Got no sense of smell to speak of.' And wanted, too. One says 'deaf,' 'blind,' 'dumb'—why not ‘snoof’?"

   • 1946, Una Jeffers to Dorothy Brett, The Collected Letters Of Robinson Jeffers. With Selected Letters Of Una Jeffers, volume 3, Stanford, p. 410:

     […] it means when a person lacks his sense of smell. I'm glad I'm not snoof.

   • 1966, Monroe C. Beardsley, Thinking Straight; Principles of Reasoning for Readers and Writers, Prentice-Hall, page 292:

     And the word "snoof" has been brought forth (by an analogy with "deaf") to describe someone who is devoid of, or deficient in, the sense of smell.

   • 1994, Diana Starr Cooper, Night After Night, Island Press, page 127:

     My mother-in-law, Louise Field Cooper, used the word snoof to convey some of this meaning, as in “he has such a bad cold he's gone totally snoof.

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• Rhymes: -oːf

snoof

1. singular past indicative of snuiven