Longnose

Part of speech: noun, adjective

Definitions

1. A term denoting a person or animal characterized by an unusually extended or prominent nose; sometimes used colloquially or figuratively to describe someone curious or inquisitive
2. Refers to an individual or creature possessing a noticeably elongated nasal feature; can be employed metaphorically to indicate nosiness or prying behavior
3. Describes a being distinguished by a long protruding nose; also utilized in informal contexts to imply an inquisitive nature or tendency to intrude into others' matters

Etymology: "Longnose" is a plain compound: "long" joined to "nose," with the two words fused into one. Its meaning follows directly from its parts, so the interest lies in how the same literal description came to carry a figurative sense about prying. The adjective describes a person or creature with a noticeably protruding nose, and the informal extension reads that prominent nose as a sign of someone who pokes into other people's business, as though the nose were doing the sniffing around. Both parts are ancient in English. "Long" and "nose" are native Germanic words, not borrowings, so the compound is built entirely from vocabulary the language has held for well over a thousand years. The fused spelling is the usual pattern for this kind of straightforward descriptive compound, and it reflects that the combination is a single lexical unit rather than a phrase.

Synonyms: snout, beak, proboscis, muzzle, nose

Antonyms: shortnose, flatnose