Other forms: snuffed, snuffing
To snuff a candle is to put it out. Snuff the candle, snuffed out, a candle snuffer.
Snuff out is the commoner form, and it is used figuratively of anything ended abruptly: snuffed out a promising career. A snuffer is the little cone on a handle used for the job, which works better than blowing because it does not scatter wax. Snuff is also powdered tobacco taken through the nose, which was the fashionable form for about two centuries. Note snuff it, which is British slang for dying.
1verbsnuffTo put a candle out.
“Before bed, she snuffed the candle with her fingers.”
2nounpowderedPowdered tobacco taken through the nose.
“Snuff was fashionable for roughly two centuries.”
snuff is an extinguishing, or powdered tobacco.
Middle Dutch snuffen meant to sniff, and snuff the tobacco comes from that. The candle sense comes from a separate word for the burnt wick end, which had to be trimmed — snuffing was originally cutting rather than extinguishing.
Middle Dutch
snuffen — to snuff, sniff, snuffle
English, today
snuff
Late Middle English -, from Middle Dutch snuffen (“to snuff, sniff, snuffle”). Related to Dutch snuiven (“to sniff”), Middle Low German snûve (“pose, head-cold”), German Schnupfen (“head-cold”). The noun is probably from Dutch snuf (“snuff”), an abbreviation of snuftabak, snuiftabak (“snuff”). Related to sniff (compare Dutch snuffen (“snuff”), German schnupf (“snuff”), French schnouff (“junk”)).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA