/snaɪp/
OriginFrom Middle English snipe, snype (a type of bird), from Old Norse snípa, as in mýrisnípa (“moor snipe”). Akin to Norwegian snipe.
The verb originated in the 1770s among soldiers in British India where a hunter skilled enough to kill the elusive snipe was dubbed a "sniper". The term sniper was first attested in 1824 in the sense of the word "sharpshooter".
- Any of various limicoline game birds of the genera Gallinago, Lymnocryptes and Coenocorypha in the family Scolopacidae, having a long, slender, nearly straight beak.
- A fool; a blockhead.
“For I mine own gained knowledge should profane,/ If I would time expend with such a snipe,/ But for my sport and profit.”
- A shot fired from a concealed place.
- slangA member of the engineering department on a ship.
- slangA goal.
- slangA cigarette butt.
- An end of a log remaining after timber has been cut away.
- An animated promotional logo during a television show.
- A strip of copy announcing some late breaking news or item of interest, typically placed in a print advertisement in such a way that it stands out from the ad.
- A bottle of wine measuring 0.1875 liters, one fourth the volume of a standard bottle; a quarter bottle or piccolo.
- A sharp, clever answer; sarcasm.
- A note or sticker attached to an existing poster to provide further information (e.g. an event is sold out, political criticism, etc.).
“[R]egular campaign posters are easily adapted to the student market by sniping them. […] The student snipe should say something like, "FOR STUDENTS ONLY: 5 EVENTS FOR AS LITTLE AS $20.00!"”
- intransitiveTo hunt snipe.
“The pleasures of Bay bird shooting should not be spoken of in the same sentence with cocking or sniping.”
- intransitiveTo shoot at individuals from a concealed place.
- broadly, intransitiveTo shoot with a sniper rifle.
- transitiveTo watch a timed online auction and place a winning bid against (the current high bidder) at the last possible moment.
“I am the type who is liable to snipe you
With two seconds left to go, whoa.”
“Tip: Adding a few cents to your maximum bid is particularly effective when you're sniping. (..) Last-second bidding is called sniping, and 15 percent of all eBay auctions are won within the last minut”
“Sniping is the process of placing bids in the closing minutes or seconds of an auction. Snipers do this to avoid bidding wars that escalate the bids to more than they want to pay.”
- transitiveTo nose (a log) to make it drag or slip easily in skidding.
- slangTo score a goal.
- To move the ball quickly in a different direction.
“The breakthrough duly arrived after 35 minutes, an absolute beauty of a team goal scored by Lozano. First Khedira was robbed deep in the Mexico half. Hernández sniped away from Jérôme Boateng and Mats”
- intransitiveTo make malicious, underhand remarks or attacks.
“Capitalizing on the restive mood, Mr. Farage, the U.K. Independence Party leader, took out an advertisement in The Daily Telegraph this week inviting unhappy Tories to defect. In it Mr. Farage sniped ”
“After the president held a White House event announcing a shared venture, with up to $500 billion of funding[…] Elon Musk sniped on X that the money for the venture wasn’t really there.”
- transitiveTo attach a note or sticker to (an existing poster) to provide further information, political criticism, etc.
“Campus newspaper advertising rates are inexpensive, flyers can be simple because the ticket-price message is strong, and regular campaign posters are easily adapted to the student market by sniping th”
“At the time, a poster cost more to snipe than to print. The company quoted us $1.50 per poster, and made such a point of guaranteeing coverage, I decided to covertly follow one of their crews around o”
Formssnipes(plural) · snipe(plural) · snipes(present, singular, third-person) · sniping(participle, present) · sniped(participle, past) · sniped(past) · Snipes(plural)