nose

UK[nəʊ̯z]US[noʊ̯z]

nounA15 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #577 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: noses, nosed

Your nose is the part in the middle of your face that you breathe and smell through. Blowing it into a tissue when you have a cold, wrinkling it at a bad smell, the red one you come home with in February.

It reaches out from the face in every direction. The front end of a plane, a car or a boat is its nose, as in the plane's nose dipped, and as a verb to nose is to move forward slowly and carefully: the taxi nosed out of the side street. A nose FOR something is a talent for finding it — a nose for a bargain, a nose for trouble. Wine people use nose for the way a wine smells. And the idioms are everywhere: under your nose means in plain sight, poke your nose in means interfere, turn your nose up at means reject as beneath you.

Definitions of nose

1nounnoseThe part of the face you breathe and smell through.A1~92%
“Her nose was streaming after ten minutes in the cold.”
2nounpointedThe pointed front end of a plane, car or boat.B1~2%
“The nose of the plane lifted off the runway.”
3nountalentA talent for finding or noticing something.C1~2%
“He has a nose for a good second-hand bike.”
4verbmoveTo move forward slowly and carefully.B2~2%
“The taxi nosed through the crowd outside the stadium.”
5nounwineThe smell of a wine.C1~2%
“The wine has a nose of blackcurrant and woodsmoke.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 13 sentences found in the wild and placed 12 of them on a sense (1 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

nose is a body part.

Phrases it lives in

under your nose — right in front of you, where you should have seen it
poke your nose in — to interfere in something that is not your business
turn your nose up at — to reject something as not good enough for you
pay through the nose — to pay far more for something than it is worth

Where it comes from

Nose is one of the oldest words English has, and it has barely changed shape: Old English nosu, and before that a Proto-Indo-European form meaning nose or nostril. The same root sits in German Nase, Dutch neus, Danish naese and Latin nasus. That last one is why nasal looks like a relative of nose — because it is one.

Proto-Indo-European
*néh₂s-
Proto-West Germanic
*nosu
Old English
nosu
Middle English
nose
English, today
nose

Built from

*nh₂es- · Proto-Indo-European — nose, nostril

From Middle English nose, from Old English nosu, from Proto-West Germanic nosu, variant of nasō, old dual from Proto-Indo-European néh₂s- ~ nh₂es- (“nose, nostril”). See also stq Noose, West Frisian noas, Dutch neus, Swedish nos, Norwegian nos (“snout”), Low German Nääs, German Nase, Swedish näsa, Norwegian nese, Danish næse (“nose”); also Latin nāris (“nostril”), nāsus (“nose”), Lithuanian nósis, Russian нос, Sanskrit नासा (“nostrils”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Body & Health, Smell & Taste

Practise this word

nose in the wild

The human nose is the first organ of the respiratory system.
Human nose
The nose has an important function in breathing.
Human nose
Some teams, especially in the National Football League (NFL), have a nose tackle in this scheme, but most of them do not.
Defensive tackle
The artist was provoked by the controversial introduction of CCTV cameras throughout London and, inspired by the Situationists, installed the noses under the noses of the cameras.
London Noses
The noses are said to be located at Admiralty Arch, Great Windmill Street, Meard Street, Bateman Street, Dean Street, Endell Street and D'Arblay Street in Central London.
London Noses

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the nosu family

nose

nose — used about once every 48 pages · #577 · point at the bar for the others

Definitions of nose

1nounnoseThe part of the face you breathe and smell through.A1~92%

“Her nose was streaming after ten minutes in the cold.”

2nounpointedThe pointed front end of a plane, car or boat.B1~2%

“The nose of the plane lifted off the runway.”

3nountalentA talent for finding or noticing something.C1~2%

“He has a nose for a good second-hand bike.”

4verbmoveTo move forward slowly and carefully.B2~2%

“The taxi nosed through the crowd outside the stadium.”

5nounwineThe smell of a wine.C1~2%

“The wine has a nose of blackcurrant and woodsmoke.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 13 sentences found in the wild and placed 12 of them on a sense (1 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

nose is a body part.