Other forms: sniffles, sniffling
To sniffle is to breathe noisily through a blocked nose. Sniffle all day, stop sniffling, a sniffle and a cough.
It is the repeated small sniff of a cold or of quiet crying, which is why the sound carries so much information about somebody's state. The sniffles, in the plural, means a mild cold. Note that the word is sniff plus the -le ending that means doing something repeatedly, as in nibble and wriggle.
1verbsniffleTo breathe noisily through a blocked nose.
“The little girl sniffled all through the film because she had a cold.”
2nounmildA mild cold, in the plural.
“The baby has the sniffles, so we're staying at home today.”
sniffle is a noisy breathing.
Also accepted in games: snuffle
Sniff plus -le, a frequentative ending meaning to do repeatedly. Snivel and snuffle are relatives.
Middle English
sniffen
English
sniff
English, today
sniffle
From sniff + le. Compare snivel. sniff comes from Middle English sniffen, of imitative of the sound origin.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA