Snout

How to spell snout

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce snout

What does snout mean?

1. nounThe projecting nose and mouth area of an animal, such as a pig or dog.

Snout in a sentence

• The pig pushed its snout into the mud looking for food.

• The dog rested its snout on my knee while I read.

Where does snout come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Snout comes from Middle English snoute, which English shared with a family of closely related words across the Low Countries and Germany, including Middle Dutch snute and Middle Low German snut, all describing the projecting nose or muzzle of an animal. These words trace back to a Germanic root tied to snorting, sniffing, and the same sound family that gives us snot, snort, and snore, so the cluster of words around the nose all sprang from one origin. The literal early sense was the long, blunt nose of a pig, dog, or other beast, and from there it spread to the front projecting part of objects such as a pipe or a vessel. English has used the word since the 1200s, and the spelling has stayed remarkably stable, keeping the tidy sn- opening that links it to its sniffing relatives. The simple ou spelling for the 'ow' sound is the only mild trap, echoing words like out and shout.

How the word is built

• snout (whole root word, from Middle English snoute meaning the projecting nose of an animal)