muzzlenoun/ˈmʌzəl/

• 1

  The protruding part of an animal's head which includes the nose, mouth and jaws.

  • The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, / The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, […]
• 2

  derogatoryslangA person's mouth.

• 3

  A device used to prevent an animal from biting or eating, which is worn on its snout.

• 4

  engineeringfirearmsgovernmentThe mouth or the end for entrance or discharge of a gun, pistol etc., that the bullet emerges from.

• 5

  A piece of the forward end of the plow-beam by which the traces are attached.

• 6

  obsoletehistoricalAn openwork covering for the nose, used for the defense of the horse, and forming part of the bards in the 15th and 16th centuries.

muzzleverb/ˈmʌzəl/

• 1

  To bind or confine an animal's mouth by putting a muzzle, as to prevent it from eating or biting.

  • Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.
• 2

  To restrain (from speaking, expressing opinion or acting); to gag; to silence; to censor.

  • Those who want to muzzle everyone else are likely nothing less than pseudovirtuous.
  • Man is brow-beaten, leashed, muzzled, masked, and lashed by boards and councils, by leagues and societies, by church and state.
• 3

  obsoleteTo veil, mask, muffle.

• 4

  obsoleteTo fondle with the closed mouth; to nuzzle.

  • Venus her self would sit Muzzling and Gazing them in the Eyes
  • And now, while they are climbing the pole in another part of the field, and muzzling in a flour-tub in another, the old farmer […] announces to all whom it may concern that a half-sovereign in money will be forthcoming to the old gamester who breaks most heads; […]
• 5

  To bring the muzzle or mouth near.

  • The Bear comes directly up to him, Muzzles and Smells to him.