sniveling
sniveling is the present participle and gerund of snivel.
sniveling is the alternative form of snivelling.
Meaning of snivel
Verb
snivel (third-person singular simple present snivels, present participle (US) sniveling or (UK) snivelling, simple past and past participle (US) sniveled or (UK) snivelled)
- 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)
- Synonyms:
- sniffle
- With stinking breath, swart-cheeks, and hanging chaps;
- 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
- To say (something) while sniffling or crying.
- This bye dialogue prevented my hearing what passed between the prisoner and Captain Thornton, but I heard the former snivel out, in a very subdued tone, “And ye’ll ask her to gang nae farther than just to shew ye where the MacGregor is?—Ohon! ohon!”1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter III, in Rob Roy. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst...
Meaning of snivelling
Noun
snivelling (plural snivellings)
- The act of producing a snivel.
- He would also have been exposed to the coughings and shufflings, comings and goings, questions and answers, wailings and slammings, snivellings and sneezings, etc., which figured so prominently in the reference room […]2011, John O'Loughlin, Two Sides of the Same Coin
Forms of sniveling
| plural | snivelings |
|---|
Questions about sniveling
- What is sniveling the present participle and gerund of?
- Sniveling is the present participle and gerund of snivel.
Words near sniveling in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sniveling (page history and authors); snivel (page history and authors); snivelling (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “sniveling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sniveling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.