snippet

Etymology

It is formed from English snip + -et, with the diminutive suffix.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} The OED and the Shorter Oxford take the base to be the verb snip,^[2][8] Etymonline and Klein the noun.^[3][6] Snip itself is probably from Dutch snippen (“to snip, shred”) or Low German snippen, of imitative origin.^[3][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A small piece cut off: the first record is in the second part of Samuel Butler's Hudibras (1664), of witches "cutting from malefactors snippets".^{[2][5][10][4]} Etymonline dates it to the 1660s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined the word as a small part or share, quoting the same lines of Hudibras.^[10] The sense "a short passage taken from a written work" appears in 1864, at first especially of newspapers, and the adjective snippety is recorded from the same year;^[3][2] other figurative uses follow from 1880.^[2] The Shorter Oxford extends the word to a fragment or scrap of information.^[8] In dialects from Scotland to Cornwall a snippet was a very small piece of anything, a morsel or shred, and in Lancashire also a dish of baked meat and potatoes.^[11]

Timeline

• 1664 – a small piece cut off.^[2][5][4]
• 1864 – a short passage from a literary work, and the adjective snippety.^[2][3]
• 1880 – figurative uses.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small piece or fragment of something: She jotted down snippets of the conversation.^[7][4][2][9]
2. A brief extract or quotation from a text, speech or piece of music.^[12][4][2]
3. (informal) A small or mischievous person.^[9]

Word family

• snippety

Related words

• snip
• snippy

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ 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.
11. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
12. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press