snipe

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English snipe, also snype,^[2][3] probably borrowed from Old Norse snípa,^[4][1][2][5] which is recorded in mýrisnípa (“moor snipe”),^{[4][6][7][8][1]} with Norwegian myrsnipa and strandsnipa.^[4][2][9] How the Scandinavian word relates to the West Germanic names of the bird is unclear:^[4][10][5] Middle Dutch snippe (modern Dutch snip), Middle Low German snippe and sneppe, the source of Danish sneppe and Swedish snäppa, and Old High German snepfa (modern German Schnepfe).^[4][7][6] The Middle English plural is sometimes spelled with a double p, which may reflect the Dutch and Low German form.^[2] Etymonline suggests that the name meant "snipper", after the long straight bill;^[6][11] Klein relates it to Old High German snabul (“beak”) and to snaffle,^[12] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged probably to neb.^[13] The Old English name of the bird was Old English snīte, of uncertain origin, which survives as the dialect word snite.^[6][14][5] The verb is formed from the noun,^[4][5][7] in allusion to shooting snipe as game; it arose among British soldiers in India.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The bird: about 1325, in an English gloss on Walter de Bibbesworth's French treatise, where a snype translates becaz.^[4][2] The Middle English Dictionary has a list of trees and birds perhaps from before 1300 with the same gloss,^[2] and Barnhart dates the word probably before 1300.^[7]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English snipe also named the Egyptian ibis, in a translation of Higden's Polychronicon.^[4][2] Shakespeare's Othello has it as a term of abuse,^[4][6] and Johnson (1755) defined it as "a fool; a blockhead", quoting that play.^[15] The insult lives on in guttersnipe.^[6] The verb comes from snipe-shooting: the bird was hard to hit, and by the 1770s soldiers in India used snipe for picking men off one at a time from cover and at long range.^[6][4][1] Etymonline dates this to 1773, and the OED's first quotation, in a letter of G. Selwyn, to 1782.^[6][4][13] The figurative sense, to attack with sly or carping criticism, appears in 1892, in a novel by Mrs H. Ward.^[4][7][6] The noun gathered slang senses from the 19th century: a pair of scissors (1819), in America the discarded stub of a cigar or cigarette (1891),^[4][16] and a small flyposted poster (1905).^[16] In logging, a snipe is a bevel cut on the front end of a log so that it drags more easily.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1325 – the long-billed marsh bird.^[4][2]
• c. 1475 – the Egyptian ibis (obsolete).^[4][2]
• before 1616 – a term of abuse for a person, in Shakespeare's Othello.^[4]
• 1782 – verb, to shoot at men one at a time from cover and at long range.^[4][13] Etymonline dates it to 1773.^[6]
• 1819 – slang, in the plural, a pair of scissors.^[4]
• 1832 – intransitive, to fire shots from cover.^[4]
• 1870 – logging, to cut a bevel on a log.^[4]
• 1891 – US, the stub of a cigar or cigarette.^[4][16]
• 1892 – figurative, to make sly or carping attacks on someone.^[4][7]
• 1909 – to pilfer or pick up.^[4][16]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any of several game birds of marshy places, related to the woodcock, with a long straight bill for probing in mud.^[17][13][4]
2. Any of various similar birds, such as some sandpipers.^[17][13][4]
3. A shot fired from a hidden position.^[17]
4. A contemptible person.^[4][15]
5. (US slang) The butt of a cigar or cigarette.^[4][16]

Verb

1. To shoot at people one at a time from a hidden position, usually at long range: Gunmen sniped at the convoy from the ridge.^[17][13][4]
2. To attack someone with sly or spiteful criticism: The two candidates kept sniping at each other.^[13][4][17]
3. To hunt or shoot snipe.^[13]
4. (slang) To pilfer or pick up something left lying about.^[4][16]

Word family

• sniper
• snipelike
• guttersnipe
• jacksnipe
• snipefish

Related words

• snite
• neb

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b c d e f Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
17. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins