nostril

UK/ˈnɒs.tɹɪl/US/ˈnɑ.stɹəl/

nounB2Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,612 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: nostrils

A nostril is one of the two openings of your nose. Air goes in one and out the other, more or less.

Curiously, they take turns, since the body cycles airflow between them every few hours without anybody noticing. Horses flare theirs when excited and so, less visibly, do people. The word is old and comes from a compound meaning nose-hole, which is exactly what it is. Medical writing uses nares for the same thing. Flaring nostrils is one of the standard descriptions of anger in fiction.

Definitions of nostril

1nounnostrilEither of the two external openings of the nose.B2
“He held one nostril closed and blew.”

Where it comes from

Old English
nosþyrel
Middle English
nostrille
English, today
nostril

From Middle English nostrille, from Old English nosþyrel. Compare Old Frisian nosterle (“nostril”), modern West Frisian noaster (“nostrill”). Compare also Middle Low German noster (“nostril”), from Proto-Germanic nustriz (“nostril”). by surface analysis, en + nose + thirl.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Body & Health, A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 11 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

nostril in the wild

A nostril (or naris, pl.: nares ) is either of the two orifices of the nose.
Nostril
The septum can sometimes be deviated, causing one nostril to appear larger than the other.
Nostril
Among the different varieties of nose piercings, the nostril piercing is the most common.
Nose piercing
The muscle is attached to the upper frontal process of the maxilla and inserts into the skin of the lateral part of the nostril and upper lip.
Levator labii superioris alaeque nasi muscle
Nasal hair or nose hair is the hair in the nostril.
Nasal hair

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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.

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