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sneeze

[sneez]

verb, sneezed, sneez⋅ing, noun

–verb (used without object)

1.	to emit air or breath suddenly, forcibly, and audibly through the nose and mouth by involuntary, spasmodic action.

–noun

2.	an act or sound of sneezing.

—Verb phrase

3.	sneeze at, Informal. to treat with contempt; scorn: $50,000 is nothing to sneeze at.

Origin:
1485–95; earlier snese; r. ME fnese, OE fnēosan; c. D fniezen, ON fnȳsa

Related forms:

sneezeless, adjective

sneezer, noun

sneezy, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Link To sneeze

sneeze (snēz)

intr.v. sneezed, sneez·ing, sneez·es
To expel air forcibly from the mouth and nose in an explosive, spasmodic involuntary action resulting chiefly from irritation of the nasal mucous membrane.
n. An instance or the sound of sneezing.
Phrasal Verb(s):
sneeze at Informal To treat as unimportant: These deficits are nothing to sneeze at.

[Middle English snesen, alteration of fnesen, from Old English fnēosan; see pneu- in Indo-European roots.]
sneez'er n., sneez'y adj.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Sneeze

Sneeze\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Sneezed; p. pr. & vb. n. Sneezing.] [OE. snesen; of uncertain origin; cf. D. snuse to sniff, E. neese, and AS. fne['o]san.] To emit air, chiefly through the nose, audibly and violently, by a kind of involuntary convulsive force, occasioned by irritation of the inner membrane of the nose.

Not to be sneezed at, not to be despised or contemned; not to be treated lightly. [Colloq.] "He had to do with old women who were not to be sneezed at." --Prof. Wilson.

Sneeze

Sneeze\, n. A sudden and violent ejection of air with an audible sound, chiefly through the nose.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Language Translation for : sneeze

Spanish: estornudar,

German: niesen,

Japanese: くしゃみをする

More Translations »

sneeze

O.E. fneosan "to snort, sneeze," from P.Gmc. *fneusanan (cf. M.Du. fniesen, Du. fniezen "to sneeze;" O.N. fnysa "to snort;" O.N. hnjosa, Swed. nysa "to sneeze;" O.H.G. niosan, Ger. niesen "to sneeze"), from P.Gmc. base *fneu-s- "sneeze," of imitative origin, as is PIE *pneu- "to breathe" (cf. Gk. pnein "to breathe"). Other imitative words for it, perhaps in various ways related to each other, include L. sternure (cf. It. starnutare, Fr. éternuer, Sp. estornudar), Bret. strevia, Skt. ksu-, Lith. čiaudeti, Pol. kichać, Rus. čichat'. Eng. forms in sn- appear 1490s; change may be due to a misreading of fn-, or from O.N. influence. But OED suggests M.E. fnese had been reduced to simple nese by early 15c., and sneeze is a "strengthened form" of this, "assisted by its phonetic appropriateness." The noun is first recorded 1646, from the verb. To sneeze at "to regard as of little value" (usually with negative) is attested from 1806.

Main Entry: ¹sneeze
Pronunciation: 'snEz
Function: intransitive verb
Inflected Forms: sneezed; sneez·ing
: to make asudden violent spasmodic audible expiration of breath through the nose and mouth especially as a reflex act following irritation of the nasal mucous membrane

Main Entry: ²sneeze
Function: noun
: an act or instance of sneezing

sneeze (snēz)
v. sneezed, sneez·ing, sneez·es
To expel air forcibly from the mouth and nose in an explosive, spasmodic involuntary action resulting chiefly from irritation of the nasal mucous membrane. n.
The act or an instance of sneezing.

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