Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
snuffly

snuffly

6.1
Having a blocked or runny nose and making soft sniffing sounds
  • adjective
  • /ˈsnʌfli/
translation icon : con congestión
  • The whisper was thick, snuffly, and damp.

Examples

  • After catching a cold, she was snuffly and kept reaching for tissues.

  • I heard her ragged breathing and those snuffly little sounds she always made.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • You may notice some bit snuffly and luckily all of us are quite well, but kids do still get COVID, but luckily they are usually asymptomatic.

  • Blocked nose: A snuffly baby with an upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) may become chronically distressed.

    Academic text (2014)

  • The child woke up with a snuffly nose and struggled to breathe through it.

  • His snuffly voice indicated that he had a bad allergy season.

Synonyms

sniffly
vssnuffly
1 4.6

Having a runny nose and often making soft nose sounds because of a cold or allergy

also covers having a blocked or runny nose in addition to frequent sniffles
snot-nosed
vssnuffly
  • Informal
1 8.6

Having a runny nose with snot on the face

focuses more on nasal symptoms and sounds rather than dirty appearance
snuffling
vssnuffly
6.4

Making soft repeated sniffing sounds because of a blocked or runny nose

is the broader state that also includes a runny nose as well as sounds

How Congested

blocked
1.7
snuffly
6.1
stuffy
5 3.7

Surface Forms

snuffly positive

Morphology

snuffly = snuffle (transparent) = snuffle + y

Clearly formed from the verb 'snuffle' with the adjectival suffix '-y', meaning 'characterized by snuffling', which a B1 learner can infer.

Etymology

The word snuffly comes from the verb snuffle, a sound word like sniff that means 'noisy breathing through the nose', so someone who is snuffly has a blocked or runny nose and makes sniffing sounds.