Nosed

How to spell nosed

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce nosed

What does nosed mean?

1. verbMoved slowly and carefully forward, leading with the front end.
2. verbSearched or pried into something, especially other people's affairs.

Nosed in a sentence

• The car nosed forward into the narrow parking space.

• The journalist nosed around the company records for weeks.

• The small boat nosed gently up to the wooden jetty.

• She nosed through the old boxes looking for the missing receipt.

Where does nosed come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense and past participle of the verb 'nose', which grew directly out of the noun 'nose'. That noun descends from the Old English 'nosu', a word for the facial organ of smell, and it belongs to a wide Germanic family that includes Dutch 'neus' and German 'Nase', all tracing back to an ancient root meaning 'nose' or 'nostril'. The verb developed naturally from the idea of using the nose: an animal pushing its snout forward to sniff or feel a way ahead, which is why 'nosed' can describe a vehicle or boat edging carefully forward. From the same image of sniffing came the figurative sense of prying or investigating, as in someone who 'nosed' through private papers. The spelling stays regular, simply adding -ed, and the silent final 'e' of 'nose' is dropped before the suffix, which is the only small thing a writer must remember.

How the word is built

• nose (the protruding organ; by extension, the front end)
• -ed (past tense / past participle suffix)