An 1827 engraving, titled The Contrast, depicting two women, one young and one old, snorting snuff
6 August 2021
[9 August 2021: added third current definition of being in good health]
The phrase up to snuff has three meanings. It can mean that something meets the expected or required standard, being in good health, or it can refer to someone who is knowing, not easily deceived. The phrase dates to the turn of the nineteenth century. The snuff is a reference to tobacco, taken by snorting through the nose. Snuff, here, is a metaphor for either having a good nose, i.e., not easily deceived, or mature enough to use tobacco, i.e., meeting the expected standard. (In Present-Day American dialect, dipping tobacco—ground tobacco placed between one’s cheek and gum—is often called snuff, but that’s not what the metaphor underlying the phrase refers to.)
Its first appearance in print that we know of is in the London Morning Post of 29 October 1807 in the sense of not easily deceived, but which also makes a play on words because it involves literal snuff. Unfortunately, the digital scan of the paper that is available is barely legible. The portions in square brackets are my interpretations of difficult-to-read or missing letters that can be guessed at from context; the ellipses represent completely illegible text. What can be made out from the legible portions is that a man offers a woman some false snuff; she refuses; and he comments that she is up to snuff, i.e., is not easily deceived:
[So]m[e] tim[e] since a Gentleman having a false snuff [...] in which there was a Friar, asked a youn[g lad]y if she would have a pinch of snuff, and on [?]he […]ing in the negative, he facetiously observed [I s]uppose you are up to snuff.
The sense of meeting the expected standard is in place a few years later, when it appears in what is essentially a gossip column, again in the Morning Post, this time on 28 December 1809:
By the late establishment of Mr. Foot, it must appear pretty evident that he is up to snuff.
And yet another appearance in the Morning Post several months later, on 10 August 1810, uses the phrase in jest. The article is about a political meeting that is written in the style of a theater review, in particular a review of an alleged farcical play titled The Reformers, and the article makes mention of Francis Burdett, a reformist politician of the era. In the relevant passage, a tobacco vender is speaking, praising certain politicians, and the crowd shouts, “he’s up to snuff,” a double entendre simultaneously expressing support and warning that he is trying to make a profit by selling tobacco:
This scene being closed, the Tabacco-vending President (a character very whimsically sustained by W-sh-rt), in a tone and manner most extrava-ly ridiculous that can be conceived, expressed his happiness, which he declared to be inexpressible, at meeting so respectable a company on so glorious an occasion. There were many instances, he observed, both in sacred and prophane history, of persons who offered themselves as advocates for people being assailed and ill-treated by the friends of corruption. Than these nothing could be more common. The case of Sir F. Burdett, therefore, though perfectly unprecedented, was not entirely new—(Applause.) It was well known (by those who had had the story read to them as he had), that the craft of the men of Ephesus, by craft, he begged to be understood not to mean the gentle craft. Nothing was farther from his intention than to make any reflection on his friends the Long Cobler, and Mr. Gooseberry-eye, from Fetter-lane, or on the shoemaking fraternity in general. He meant merely to say that the cunning of the men of Ephesus was, when they found themselves in danger to shout aloud “Great is Diana, the Goddess of the Ephesians!” [Partial applause, mingled with cries of “He’s up to snuff!—What the devil has that to do with the Meeting?” &c.] Silence being obtained, the Snuffman proceeded to apply this piece of information, by saying, that in like manner at the present day, when the friends of corruption were assailed, they shouted against the worthy Baronet (Sir F. B-rd-tt), to uphold their system.
Also in 1810, the phrase appears in John Poole’s play Hamlet Travestie, a parody of the Shakespeare play. Act 2, Scene 1, Guildenstern remarks that Hamlet is up to snuff, that is will not be deceived by their ploy. But in the print edition of the play, Poole includes commentary, allegedly written by noted and deceased literary critics, such as Samuel Johnson and William Warburton. The relevant lines:
Rosen.
He does confess himself non compos mentis, But won't tell what the cause or the intent is.Guilden.
He'll not be sounded; he knows well enough
The game we're after: Zooks, he's up to snuff (a).
Poole includes a note to “explain” the phrase:
(a) he's up to snuff.
This is highly figurative. To snuff up is to scent. Guildenstern says,“————he knows well enough
The game we're after: Zooks, he's up to snuff.”that is, he has got scent of the game we are in pursuit of. The metaphor, which is striking and apposite, is borrowed from the Chase.
WARBURTON.Without having recourse to a far-fetched explanation, I choose to understand the passage in it's [sic] common acceptation: The game we're after means. nothing more than the trick by which we are endeavouring to worm from him his secret; but which, as he is up to snuff, i.e, as he is a knowing one, he will, assuredly, render inefficacious.
JOHNSON.
The explanation given in the commentary is specious, but it is clear that Poole did not expect his readers to know the slang, indicating that the phrase had been recently minted.
Another early use appears in an April 1811 letter printed in the Reflector about a very competent lawyer:
Mr. Garrow never fails to talk to his witnesses in their own way, to meet them upon their own ground, to give them slang for slang. This at once frightens those who come prepared with a false story; the truth drops out involuntarily; and the witness goes away with the conviction how impossible it is to deceive that Garrow, for he's up to snuff.
And it appears in James Kenney’s 1812 play Turn Out! in a conversation between two characters, Gregory and Forage:
Greg. But you'll excuse me; I'm a going into Doctor Truckle's room to look for a pen, and ink, and paper, to write to her. She'll think it unhandsome if I don't let her know I'm safely arrived in good health, you know, and so forth.
For. Certainly—and all this gentility and attention to Polly Smallfry will get you into high favour with your old master, I've no doubt.
Greg, Why if he's up to snuff, I shouldn't at all wonder.
By this point, the phrase had become well established. So, that’s it. The snuff in the phrase refers to snortable tobacco, and the phrase dates to the early nineteenth century when snorting snuff was very much in fashion.
Sources:
“Art. XI.—The Law Student. Letter II.” (April 1811). The Reflector, vol. 1. London: John Hunt, 1811, 377. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
“Fashionable Arrivals.” Morning Post (London), 29 October 1807, 3. Gale Primary Sources: British Library Newspapers.
“The Katterfelto Dinner.” Morning Post (London), 10 August 1810, 3. Gale Primary Sources: British Library Newspapers.
Kenney, James. Turn Out! A Musical Farce in Two Acts. London: Whittingham and Rowland for Sharpe and Hailes, 1812, 6. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. snuff, n.3.
Poole, John. Hamlet Travestie: In Three Acts. With Annotations by Dr. Johnson and Geo. Steevens, Esq. and Other Commentators. London: J.M. Richardson, 1810, 21, 79–80. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
“Theatres.” Morning Post (London), 28 December 1809, 3. Gale Primary Sources: British Library Newspapers.
“This History of ‘Up to Snuff’ is Up to Snuff.” Merriam-Webster. Accessed 15 July 2021.
Image credit: 1827, stipple engraving with watercolor in the style of Louis Boilly. Wellcome Library. Public domain image.