nuzzle

• nosel, nousel, nousle, nowsle, nusle (all obsolete)

Early 15th century Middle English noselyng, as nose + -lyng (“(frequentative)”) (modern English nose +‎ -le (“(frequentative)”)). Modern affectionate, intimate sense 1590s, possibly influenced by nestle or nursle (frequentative of nurse).[1]

• IPA^(key): /ˈnʌzəl/
• Rhymes: -ʌzəl

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nuzzle (third-person singular simple present nuzzles, present participle nuzzling, simple past and past participle nuzzled)

1. (transitive, intransitive) (of animals, lovers, etc) To touch someone or something with the nose.

   The horse nuzzled its foal's head gently to wake him up.

   The bird nuzzled up to the wires of the cage.

   She nuzzled her boyfriend in the cinema.

   • 2010, Jennifer Egan, “Selling the General”, in A Visit from the Goon Squad:

     Within a couple of hours, pictures of General B nuzzling Kitty Jackson were being posted and traded on the Web.

2. (obsolete) To nurse; to foster; to bring up.
   • 1641 May, John Milton, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England: And the Cavvses that hitherto have Hindred it; republished as Will Taliaferro Hale, editor, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England (Yale Studies in English; LIV), New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1916, OCLC 260112239:

     The people had been nuzzled in idolatry.

3. (obsolete) To nestle; to house, as in a nest.
4. (obsolete) To go along with the nose to the ground, like a pig.
   • 1712, John Arbuthnot, The History of John Bull:

     He charg'd through an army of lawyers, sometimes with sword in hand, at other times nuzzling like an eel in the mud.

   • 1733–1737, Alexander Pope, [Imitations of Horace], London: […] R[obert] Dodsley [et al.]:

• nursle

• Folk-etymology: a dictionary of verbal corruptions or words perverted in form or meaning, by false derivation or mistaken analogy, Abram Smythe Palmer, G. Bell and Sons, 1882, p. 261