snorkel

Meanings

Noun

• A hollow tube, held in the mouth, or mounted on and opening into a diving mask, used by swimmers for breathing underwater.
• A retractable tube fitted in diesel-engine submarines to allow sufficient ventilation that the engines may be used at periscope depth.
• a snorkel parka

Verb

• To use a snorkel.

Origin

• Borrowed from German Schnorchel ("(submarine) snorkel"), related to schnarchen. Thus named because of the submarine snorkel's functional similarity to a nose and because of its noise when in use. The anglicized spelling was first recorded in 1945. See, for example, Mark S. Watson, "New Epoch in Sea War", The Baltimore Sun, December 31, 1945, p. 8: "The Germans' earlier quest of the last important objective, it will be remembered, had produced the Snorkel, a long exhaust tube whose vent reached above water and permitted a submerged vessel to discharge its Diesel fumes in open air."