Snot is mucus from the nose. Blunt, childish, and the word everybody actually uses.
Mucus is the clinical term and it does a real job, since it traps dust and bacteria before they reach the lungs, and its colour changes during an infection for reasons that say less than people think. The word is informal to the point of rudeness in adult company. Snotty describes both a runny nose and, quite separately, somebody behaving in a superior way.
1nounsnotMucus from the nose.
“The child had snot all down one sleeve.”
Middle English
snot
English, today
snot
From Middle English snot. From Middle English snot, snotte, from Old English ġesnot, snott, from Proto-West Germanic snutt, from Proto-Germanic snuttuz (“nasal mucus”), from the same base as snout; ultimately of imitative of the sound or origin (compare sniff, snuff, snoot, snook), but possibly continuing Proto-Indo-European snew- (“to flow, run”). Related also to snite. Cognate with frr snot (“snot”), stq Snotte (“snot”), West Frisian snotte (“snot”), Dutch snot (“snot”), German Low German Snött (“snot”), dialectal German Schnutz (“snot”), Danish snot (“snot”), Norwegian snott (“snot”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, A Song of Ice and Fire
First appears in chapter 6 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word