Nose

How to spell nose

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce nose

What does nose mean?

1. nounThe part of the face above the mouth, used for breathing and smelling.
2. verbTo move forward slowly and carefully, or to investigate by smelling or prying.

Nose in a sentence

• noun

  The cold air made her nose run all morning.

• verb

  The driver tried to nose the car gently into the tight space.

• noun

  He broke his nose during the football match.

• verb

  The dog began to nose around the bins in the yard.

Where does nose come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word comes from the Old English nosu, the name for the organ of smell and breathing, which goes back to a Proto-Germanic root shared with the Dutch neus and the German Nase. Linguists trace it further to an ancient Indo-European root that also produced the Latin nasus, the source of words like 'nasal' and 'nostril' (literally the 'nose-hole'). The spelling settled with a silent final 'e' during the Middle English period, when many words gained that ending to mark a long vowel. Over centuries the meaning broadened beyond the body part to cover anything that projects forward, such as the nose of an aircraft or a car, and the verb sense of pushing carefully ahead. Because it sounds exactly like 'knows', the spelling trap is choosing the plain n-o-s-e form when the verb 'to know' is not meant.

How the word is built

• nose (single root from Old English nosu, the organ of smell); no prefix or suffix

Words that sound like nose

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• knows: Has knowledge of something, or is acquainted with someone, in the present tense for a single other person.