snooty
Snooty (adj) means acting superior to others; snobbish and haughty. Example: “The waiter at the fancy restaurant gave us a snooty look when we asked for ketchup.”
How to use snooty
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishLooking down on other people, like your nose is stuck in the air.
Close cousin of "snotty" — snooty leans more toward snobbish/superior, snotty leans more toward rude/bratty, though they overlap a lot in casual speech.
Word forms
- Plural
- snooties
- Comparative
- snootier
- Superlative
- snootiest
Fill the gap
Can you complete this real example?
The waiter at the fancy restaurant gave us a _____ look when we asked for ketchup.
Etymology
The adjective is derived from snoot (“(UK, dialectal, and slang) snout; nose”) + -y (suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘having the quality of’), probably referring to a snobbish person often having their nose in the air (that is, acting disdainfully towards others). Snoot is a dialectal variant of snout. The noun is derived from the adjective.
