Heading
nudging the young gentleman in the left side, 'vot do you say to a drop o' blue ruin? or, as you likes to be conish (genteel), I doesn't care if I sports you a glass of port.'
Conk, subs. (popular).—The nose.
[Hotten says: possibly from the
Latin concha, a shell. Greek,
[Greek: kógchê]—hence anything hollow.
A parallel is testa = an earthenware
pot, a shell, in Latin; and in
later Latin = a skull; whence the
French teste or tête = head. Cf.,
quot., 1838.]
English Synonyms. Boko or boco; proboscis; smeller; bowsprit; claret-jug; gig; muzzle; cheese-cutter; beak; snuff-box; snorter; post-horn; paste-horn; handle; snout; nozzle; smelling-cheat; snotter; candlestick; celestial; snottle-box; snuffler; trumpet; snorer; peak.
French Synonyms. Une bouteille (popular: literally 'a bottle'); un Bourbon (popular: an abbreviated form of nez à la Bourbon. In allusion to the thick, prominent, and almost aquiline Bourbon nose); un blair or blaire (popular); un caillou (popular: properly 'a flint.' In allusion to a Bardolphian, a light-giving, quality); un tubercule (familiar: applied to a big nose. In medicine 'a tumour,' 'swelling,' or 'protuberance'); un pivase (popular: a nose of large dimensions. Michel derives the word from pive = 'a grog-blossom' or 'pin-point,' properly a fir-apple); un piton (popular: literally a geographical term meaning 'a peak.' Un piton passé à l'encaustique, a red or 'copper-nose'); un pif or pifre (general); une trompe (literally 'a horn' or 'trumpet'); une truffe (popular: literally 'a truffle,' for which pigs are trained to search. Hence a Frenchman when he wants to call a man a pig, says il a un nez à chercher des truffes); une trompette (popular: literally 'a trumpet'); un naze (popular and thieves': a Provençalism); un nazaret (popular); un chandelier (popular); une tasse (popular); un sabot (popular); un os à moelle (thieves': literally 'a marrow-*bone.' Faire juter l'os à moelle = to use the fingers as a handkerchief); un éteignoir (popular: a large nose; literally, 'an extinguisher'); un nazonnant (popular); un minois (thieves': obsolete); un mirliton (popular); un morviau (popular).
German Synonyms. Muffer or Muffert (from muffen, muffeln, or murfeln = 'to smell'); Schneitzling or Schnäuzling; Schnut (a North German form of Schnauze. Schnut is a favourite nickname among thieves, especially for those who possess long noses; also a pet name for a sweet-heart or doxy. Schnutenmelech or Schnutenkönig: the nosey king, or nosey one); Schniffling.
Italian Synonyms. Soffiante (this exactly corresponds to the English 'snorter'; it signifies literally 'blowing' or 'breathing'); fiauto or flauto (properly 'a flute'); maremagno (literally 'the great sea').
1838. Comic Almanack, p. 158. I have inserted a small item from my surgeon's bill, for repairs of his companions' noses, damaged by his passion for Conchology.
1840. H. Cockton, Valentine Vox, ch. xxviii. He fancied it proper to put on his nose before he alighted from the cab. 'Oh! oh! there's a conk! there's a smeller! Oh! oh!' exclaimed about fifty voices in chorus.
