sneeze

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   exhale spasmodically, as when an irritant entered one's nose

   Pepper makes me sneeze

2. 2
   verb

   To expel air as a reflex induced by an irritation in the nose.

   To avoid passing on your illness, you should sneeze into your sleeve.

3. 3
   verb

   To expel or displace (air, snot, etc) from the nose or mouth by the process above.

   Lily shook her head violently and sneezed a large blue-bottle fly from where that insect had perched itself on the tip of her nose.

4. 4
   noun

   An act of sneezing.

   Jared's hay fever gives him terrible sneezes.

5. 5
   noun

   a symptom consisting of the involuntary expulsion of air from the nose

6. 6
   verb

   To expel air as if the nose were irritated.

Etymology

From Middle English snesen (“to sneeze”), alteration of earlier fnesen (“to sneeze”), from Old English fnēosan (“to sneeze, snort”), from Proto-West Germanic *fneusan, from Proto-Germanic *fneusaną, from Proto-Indo-European *pnew- (“to breathe, pant, snort, sneeze”). Cognate with dialectal Dutch fniezen (“to sneeze”), Old Norse fnýsa (“to snort”). Compare neeze, from Middle English nesen, from Old English *hnēosan (“to sneeze”), cognate with Old High German niosan (“to sneeze”), Old Norse hnjósa (“to sneeze”). See neeze. It has been suggested that the change could be due to a misinterpretation…