NOSTRIL • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Nostril

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/nˈɑstrɪl/ Listen

noun

Nostril n.

(Anat.) One of the external openings of the nose, which give passage to the air breathed and to secretions from the nose and eyes; one of the anterior nares. Note: In sperm whales, porpoises, and allied animals, there is only one nostril, which is situated on the top of the head and called a spiracle.

Perception; insight; acuteness. (Obs.) "Methinks a man Of your sagacity and clear nostril should Have made another choice."

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Etymology of 'Nostril'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Nostril" Quotes from Famous Books

... God of life, and poesy, and light - The Sun in human limbs arrayed, and brow All radiant from his triumph in the fight; The shaft hath just been shot—the arrow bright With an immortal's vengeance; in his eye And nostril beautiful disdain, and might And majesty, flash their full lightnings by, Developing in that one ...

— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... (The delicate nostril swerving wide and fine, A sharp and restless lip, so well combine With that calm brow) a soul fit to receive Delight at every sense; you can believe Sordello foremost in the regal class Nature has broadly severed ...

— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... Lord of the unerring bow,[527] The God of Life, and Poesy, and Light— The Sun in human limbs arrayed, and brow All radiant from his triumph in the fight; The shaft hath just been shot—the arrow bright With an Immortal's vengeance—in his eye And nostril beautiful Disdain, and Might And Majesty, flash their full lightnings by, Developing in that ...

— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... near,— The war drum is muffled, and black is the bier; His death bell is tolling! Oh, mercy! dispel Yon sight that it freezes my spirit to tell! Life flutters convulsed in his quivering limbs, And his blood-streaming nostril in agony swims; Accursed be the faggots that blaze at his feet, Where his heart shall be thrown, ere it ceases to beat, With the smoke of its ashes to poison ...

— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... shrinking Adam. No one but Tintoretto, till we come to Blake, could have imagined yonder Jonah, summoned by the beck of God from the whale's belly. The monstrous fish rolls over in the ocean, blowing portentous vapour from his trump-shaped nostril. The prophet's beard descends upon his naked breast in hoary ringlets to the girdle. He has forgotten the past peril of the deep, although the whale's jaws yawn around him. Between him and the outstretched finger of Jehovah ...

— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

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