English edit

Etymology edit

From sneeze +‎ -er.

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

sneezer (plural sneezers)

  1. Someone who sneezes.
    • 1884, Journal of Materia Medica, volume 23, page 58:
      Hay feverites will be interested to know that Sydney Smith was also a sneezer.
    • 2002, Joy Hakim, War, Peace, and All that Jazz, page 22:
      In New York and Chicago, laws were passed making it illegal to sneeze or cough in public without using a handkerchief. Police dutifully hauled sneezers and coughers to court, where they were given stiff fines.
  2. (slang) A person's nose.
    He punched me right in the sneezer!
  3. (US, slang, dated) Prison.
    • 1940, Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, Penguin, published 2010, page 200:
      ‘No cure for lads like you, is there?’ he said. ‘Except to throw you in the sneezer.’
  4. (UK, slang, obsolete) A snuffbox.
    • 1859, Snowden's Magistrates Assistant, page 497:
      He has been lagged for beaker hunting, was a mushroom faker, has been on the steel for snamming a wedge sneezer; []
  5. (UK, slang, obsolete) A handkerchief.
    • 1835, Charles Mathews, Mathews's New Budget of Fun, etc (page 156)
      Some person has deprived me of my East Indian silk handkerchief. — What, have you lost your sneezer?

References edit

  • (snuffbox; handkerchief): John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary