nose

See also: tail

Nose is more than taking a sniff of your wine. I'll walk you through it, with this glass of 2001 Fetzer Echo Ridge Gewurtztraminer. Nose is pouring the wine carefully, swirl it very gently, just enough to waft the odor off the surface. Inhale. Don't snuffle at it, breathe it in. Fill your lungs through your nasal passages and your mouth. Taste the air. Smell the sun on the grapes, the faint tang of alcohol, the wind blowing off the ocean, the hints of pineapple and cloves?

Feel the aroma blossom in your mind. The scent receptors are the most intimately connected to the brain, the most evocative and primal sense. Most of taste is really in the nose, not the mouth. Want proof? Cut a slice of potato and a slice of apple, plug your nose completely (or wait for a nasty head cold) and have someone feed you one of them. You won't be able to tell which one it is by taste alone. Let it carry you away.

Take a healthy sip. Let it pool at the front of your mouth. Purse your lips slightly and draw air in, bubbling through the wine. If it dribbles out, take a smaller sip, and don't be embarassed, it happens to the best of us. Taste the sweet pear sprinkled with cardamom. You aren't tasting that with your tongue. It's going right into the back of your nose. When you swallow, breathe out through your nose and you'll be treated to another olfactory journey, more subtle, a lingering taste of the exotic.

This is why we drink wine, not because it makes us tipsy, not because it tastes good. Because wine speaks to the nose, and the nose is the seat of the soul.

The Nose

A few facts:

There's a compass in my nose?

• All humans have a trace amount of iron in their noses, a rudimentary compass found in the ethmoid bone (between the eyes) to help in directional finding relative to the earth's magnetic field.

• Studies show that many people have the ability to use these magnetic deposits to orient themselves-even when blindfolded and removed from such external clues as sunlight-to within a few degrees of the North Pole, exactly as a compass does.
• Though no one knows how this "sixth" sense is processed by the brain more then two dozen animals, including the dolphin, tuna, salmon, salamander, pigeon, and honeybee have been found to have similar magnetic deposits in their brains to help them in navigation and migration.

Noses take breaks

• Nostrils switch on and off every three to four hours, so that one is always smelling and breathing while the other closes down and rests.

Women Nose

• Women have a better sense of smell then men due to higher levels of the female hormone estrogen.

• Interestingly, a woman can detect the odor of musk- a scent associated with male bodies-better than any other odor.

Nose sex?

• The sex/scent connection is a powerful one. About 25 percent of people with smell disorders-due to head injuries, viral infections, allergies, or aging-lose interest in sex.

Nose (?), n. [AS. nosu; akin to D. neus, G. nase, OHG. nasa, Icel. nös, Sw. näsa, Dan. näse, Lith. nosis, Russ. nos', L. nasus, nares, Skr. nAsA, nAs. &?; Cf. Nasal, Nasturtium, Naze, Nostril, Nozzle.]

1. (Anat.)

The prominent part of the face or anterior extremity of the head containing the nostrils and olfactory cavities; the olfactory organ. See Nostril, and Olfactory organ under Olfactory.

2.

The power of smelling; hence, scent.

We are not offended with a dog for a better nose than his master.
Collier.

3.

A projecting end or beak at the front of an object; a snout; a nozzle; a spout; as, the nose of a bellows; the nose of a teakettle.

Nose bit (Carp.), a bit similar to a gouge bit, but having a cutting edge on one side of its boring end. --
Nose hammer (Mach.), a frontal hammer. --
Nose hole (Glass Making), a small opening in a furnace, before which a globe of crown glass is held and kept soft at the beginning of the flattening process. --
Nose key (Carp.), a fox wedge. --
Nose leaf (Zoöl.), a thin, broad, membranous fold of skin on the nose of many species of bats. It varies greatly in size and form. --
Nose of wax, fig., a person who is pliant and easily influenced. "A nose of wax to be turned every way." Massinger --
Nose piece, the nozzle of a pipe, hose, bellows, etc.; the end piece of a microscope body, to which an objective is attached. --
To hold, put, or bring one's nose to the grindstone. See under Grindstone. --
To lead by the nose, to lead at pleasure, or to cause to follow submissively; to lead blindly, as a person leads a beast. Shak. --
To put one's nose out of joint, to humiliate one's pride, esp. by supplanting one in the affections of another. [Slang] --
To thrust one's nose into, to meddle officiously in. --
To wipe one's nose of, to deprive of; to rob. [Slang]

© Webster 1913

Nose, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Nosed (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Nosing.]

1.

To smell; to scent; hence, to track, or trace out.

2.

To touch with the nose; to push the nose into or against; hence, to interfere with; to treat insolently.

Lambs . . . nosing the mother's udder.
Tennyson.

A sort of national convention, dubious in its nature . . . nosed Parliament in the very seat of its authority.
Burke.

3.

To utter in a nasal manner; to pronounce with a nasal twang; as, to nose a prayer. [R.] Cowley.

© Webster 1913

Nose (nOz), v. i.

1.

To smell; to sniff; to scent. Audubon.

2.

To pry officiously into what does not concern one.

© Webster 1913

Nose, v. t.

1.

To confront; be closely face to face or opposite to; meet.

2.

To furnish with a nose; as, to nose a stair tread.

3.

To examine with the nose or sense of smell.

4.

To make by advancing the nose or front end; as, the train nosed its way into the statio; (Racing Slang)

to beat by (the length of) a nose.

© Webster 1913

Nose (?), v. i.

To push or move with the nose or front forward.

A train of cable cars came nosing along.
Hamlin Garland.

© Webster 1913