Nostril

//ˈnɑ.stɹəl// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Either of the two orifices located on the nose (or on the beak of a bird); used as a passage for air and other gases to travel the nasal passages.

    "[…]whether it bee that they bee broken winded and purſiue, or otherwiſe bitten and ſtung with venomous beaſts; in which caſes, there muſt be an injection made vp into the noſthrils, of the juice of Rue in wine."

  2. 2
    either one of the two external openings to the nasal cavity in the nose wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
narisair ductair holeair passageair shaftair tube

Example

More examples

"There's a pea in my right nostril."

Etymology

From Middle English nostrille, from Old English nosþyrel. Compare Old Frisian nosterle (“nostril”), modern West Frisian noaster (“nostrill”). Compare also Middle Low German noster (“nostril”), from Proto-Germanic *nustriz (“nostril”). By surface analysis, nose + thirl (“hole”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.