Meaning

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

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

originFrom 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…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0