snuff \SNUHF\ ,
verb:
1. To extinguish or suppress.
2. To cut off or remove the snuff of (candles, tapers, etc.).
noun:
1. The charred or partly consumed portion of a candlewick.
2. A preparation of tobacco, either powdered and taken into the nostrils by inhalation or ground and placed between the cheek and gum.
verb:
1. To draw in through the nose by inhaling.
"Snuff" has, as the definitions above attest, multiple meanings, the first of which when I think of it is the tobacco. I never developed the steady habit of dipping snuff and haven't had a taste of it in quite some number of years. It's a nasty habit, especially when the person dipping spits into a cup. Yuck. I've got several friends who dip and swallow - gag - and each one has stomach problems ... no wonder.
I was once told my grandmother used snuff, but it was the powdered form, not the currently popular "leafy" substance more akin to chewing tobacco. According to the story, Grandma would chew on a matchstick (not the lighting end, of course) and then "dip" it into the snuff container and then rest the match with "wad" between her cheek and gum.
I think most everyone has seen an old movie, perhaps a cartoon with someone sniffing snuff up their nose. I've tried that and sure 'nuff, I sneezed...then the tobacco slowly slid down my throat. I didn't throw up, but it was a near thing. After I got used to it, though, it was tolerable.
My memory is fuzzy as to where I bought the stuff, but on some school trip I found a store that sold various sorts of smoking supplies including a wide assortment of "odd" snuffs. I saw a particular type with many different flavors called "Cokesnuff" and I bought a couple of the small tins, cherry and mint. (as I recall)
It was much better "tasting" than the old fashioned sort of snuff I had tried before, but didn't have the flavor of Coca-Cola TM; I didn't know why that was, but it was still pretty good. Between my school buddies and I, we went through the tins fairly quickly and I kept the nifty little containers for years and years.
It wasn't until a few years after school that I realized I hadn't been in a tobacco shop, but instead had been in a "head shop". (No wonder there were so many pipes.) And, of course, the "coke" in "cokesnuff" wasn't about the drink, but was instead meant to mix with cocaine.
To top all that, around the same time as THAT revelation, I couldn't figure out why anyone would want to make a movie about "snuff"...until I watched one That was when the first definition came into play.
