snuffing

snuffing

1. present participle and gerund of snuff

snuffing (plural snuffings)

1. The act by which a candle, etc. is snuffed out.
2. The act of one who, or that which, snuffs or makes a low sniffing sound.
   • 1879, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Vixen:

     Then there were frantic snuffings under the doors, and a general agitation.

   • 1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 236:

     It was early on the fifteenth day that I heard a curious familiar sequence of sounds in the kitchen, and, listening, identified it as the snuffing and scratching of a dog.