turn your nose up

November 1, 2026 6:56 AM

turn your nose up (idiom)
/ˌtɜːn jɔː ˈnəʊz ʌp/ (UK)
/ˌtɜrn jʊr ˈnoʊz ʌp/ (US)

Meaning

To refuse or reject something because you think it is not good enough for you.
To show open contempt, disdain, or scorn for something or someone.
To look down on someone or something as inferior or beneath you.
To tilt your head back and raise your nose slightly as a physical sign of disgust or contempt.

Synonyms: reject, refuse, spurn, disdain, scorn, snub, turn down, look down on, hold in contempt

Example Sentences

When the waiter brought the simple home–cooked meal, Sarah turned her nose up and asked if they had anything more refined on the menu.
Several graduates turned their noses up at the entry-level jobs and kept waiting for better offers that never came.
The cat turned its nose up at the new brand of food and refused to eat until the old one was returned.
Mike turned his nose up at the idea of staying in a budget hotel even though it was the only one available nearby.
After tasting the cheap tea, Lisa turned her nose up and pushed the glass aside without saying a word.

Etymology and Origin

Ancient Gesture of Disdain

People have been lifting their noses to show contempt for a very long time. Even in ancient Greek there was a specific word that meant both “to turn up the nose” and “to mock someone.” The same face—nose raised, lip curled—appears in later European descriptions of a sneer, so the gesture itself was already well understood long before English speakers fixed it into a set phrase.

English Emergence in the Eighteenth Century

In English the modern wording first shows up clearly in early eighteenth-century Britain. Related ideas of pride had been around earlier (“holding up one’s nose” appears in the late 1500s), but “turn up one’s nose” as a ready-made way of rejecting something only becomes common after 1700. The phrase took shape in England, where the everyday reaction to a bad smell was easily turned into a comment on people, ideas, or offers that felt beneath one’s notice.

Earliest Printed Record

The earliest known printed example is in Colley Cibber’s comedy The Refusal; or, The Ladies Philosophy, published in 1721. One character says:

“A Man must be nice indeed, that turns up his Nose at a Woman, who has no worse Imperfection, than setting too great a Value upon her Understanding.”

The line treats the gesture as something people already recognised, which suggests the expression was already in ordinary use by then. A later note by Frances Burney in 1779—“Mr. Thrale turned up his Nose with an expression of contempt”—shows it still circulating comfortably in polite circles.

From Smell to Social Superiority

At its root the image is simple: when something smells bad, people instinctively lift their noses to avoid it. Once that posture became familiar, it moved from the kitchen into social life. Raising the nose now meant “this person, this offer, this idea is not good enough for me.” The metaphor quietly links a basic physical reaction with the social act of looking down on something, so the phrase needs no extra explanation.

Later Literary Use and Cultural Persistence

By the nineteenth century the expression was common in novels and journals. Writers such as Byron, Dickens, and Trollope used it for characters who dismissed food, companions, or advice with a touch of snobbery or simple fussiness. Charles Darwin later captured the same face in his 1872 study of emotional expression, photographing a model whose raised nose and curled lip formed a classic sneer. The idiom has stayed steady in both British and American English, still used whenever someone rejects something with a clear sense that it is beneath them.

Variants

turn up your nose (at something/someone)
turn one’s nose up (at)
turn up one’s nose (at)
hold one’s nose up