Cocking a snook

Cocking a snook[1] is a sign of derision or contempt, made by putting the thumb on the nose, holding the palm open and perpendicular to the face, and wiggling the remaining fingers.[2][3] It is used mostly by schoolchildren, often combined with verbal insults, sticking out the tongue or blowing a raspberry.

Statue of a street urchin performing the gesture, Ashton-under-Lyne, UK
Stalin performing the gesture in the 1940s

It is also known as thumbing the nose, Anne's Fan or Queen Anne's Fan.[4]

The phrase can be used figuratively: the Oxford English Dictionary cites a 1938 usage "The Rome–Berlin axis..cocked the biggest snook yet at the League of Nations idea" by Eric Ambler in his Cause for Alarm.[5]

See also

References
  1. Cambridge University Press (2006). Cambridge Idioms Dictionary (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-86037-7.
  2. McNeill, David (1992). Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal About Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  3. 'Cock a snook' – the meaning and origin of this phrase, Phrases.org.uk. Retrieved at 1 January 2018
  4. Shipley, Joseph Twadell (2001). The Origins of English Words: A Discursive Dictionary of Indo-European Roots (reprint ed.). Baltimore: JHU Press. p. 302. ISBN 0-8018-6784-3. Retrieved 8 August 2009.
  5. "Snook, n.3". Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
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