Word.ws English Dictionary

snack

/snæk/

snack noun: a light meal.

snack: a light meal
Image: AlejandroLinaresGarcia, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

snack (plural snacks)

  1. A light meal.
  2. An item of food eaten between meals.
    • Stay another fifteen minutes, in which we can have a snack of some kind in place of dinner.1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries
    • The numbers thin out the further we get from London, so I don't feel guilty when I remove my mask momentarily to scoff some of the snacks I'd bought at Marylebone.2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, page 68
  3. (slang) A very sexy and attractive person.
    • Up close, he was a total snack. “That was pretty slick.” “Well.” He cocked his head, “I'm a pretty slick guy.” “I'm Kevin,” I said. “Romeo,” he put out his hand. “You're kidding.”2008, Scott Sherman, First You Fall: A Kevin Connor Mystery, Alyson Publications
    • You were looking like a snack. I was looking like a snack. We were finally going to do what two snacks do... I immediately went into my routine. Covers on. Lights off. But you Mr. Tate...you softly grabbed my hand, kissed it, and turned the lights back on.2019, Loy A. Webb, The Light, Concord Theatricals, →ISBN, page 22

Verb (1)

snack (third-person singular simple present snacks, present participle snacking, simple past and past participle snacked)

  1. To eat a light meal.
    • Insult is added to injury when I see the West Coast Railways dining train at the adjacent platform, where guests are sat snacking and drinking wine at a very sociable distance.2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, page 66
  2. To eat between meals.

Noun (2)

snack (plural snacks)

  1. (obsolete) A share; a part or portion.
    • All my demurrs but double his attacks; / At laſt he vvhiſpers, "Do; and vve go ſnacks."1735 January 13 (Gregorian calendar; indicated as 1734), [Alexander] Pope, An Epistle from Mr. Pope, to Dr. Arbuthnot, London: […] J[ohn] Wright for Lawton Gilliver […], →OCLC, page 4, lines 65–66
    • "Have you exhibited very much?" said Young Person in the bar-parlour of the "Coach and Horses," where Mr Watkins was skilfully accumulating local information on the night of his arrival. / "Very little," said Mr Watkins, "just a snack here and there."1894 July 5, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “The Hammerpond Park Burglary”, in The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents, London: Methuen & Co. […], published 1895, →OCLC, pages 216–217

Verb (2)

snack (third-person singular simple present snacks, present participle snacking, simple past and past participle snacked)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To snatch.
  2. (obsolete, transitive) To bite.
  3. (obsolete, transitive) To share.

snack meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

snack in Hindi

a light meal
नाश्ता nāśtā, भाग bhāg, स्नैक snaik

snack in Tamil

a light meal
தீனி tīṉi, சிற்றுண்டி ciṟṟuṇṭi, நொறுக்குத்தீனி noṟukkuttīṉi
an item of food eaten between meals
சிற்றுண்டி ciṟṟuṇṭi

snack in Marathi

snack
फराळ pharāḷ

snack in Urdu

a light meal
ناشْتَہ nāśta, ناشْتَا nāśtā, سْنَیک snaik, اِسْنَیک isnaik
More languagesFewer languages
snack in Bengali
নাস্তা nasta
snack in Telugu
చిరుతిండి
snack in Malayalam
ലഘുഭക്ഷണം laghubhakṣaṇaṁ, കടി kaṭi
snack in Kannada
ಲಘು ಆಹಾರ, ಉಪಾಹಾರ, ಲಘು ಊಟ, ಕಿತ್ತುಣಿಸು
snack in Punjabi
ਸਨੈਕ, ਸਨੈੱਕ, ਸਨੈਕ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ
snack in Nepali
नाश्ता nāśtā, नास्ता nāstā
snack in Tagalog
dautan, meryenda
snack in Arabic
وَجْبَة خَفِيفَة wajba ḵafīfa, لُمْجَة lumja
snack in Malay
kudapan, jajan, snek, cemilan
snack in Indonesian
camilan, kudapan, makanan ringan
snack in Thai
เครื่องว่าง krʉ̂ʉang-wâang, ของว่าง kɔ̌ɔng-wâang, อาหารว่าง aa-hǎan-wâang
snack in Myanmar
သရေစာ sa.reca, မုန့် mun., သွားရည်စာ swa:ranyca

Examples of snack in a sentence

  • The fives and sixes will have a snack first, then the older kids.
  • Stand up, walk to the refrigerator, and get your own snack.
  • Grapes give us whole-fruit snacks, grape juice, raisins, wine, and more.

All 40 example sentences with snack

Synonyms of snack

All synonyms of snack

Forms of snack

Noun
pluralsnacks
alternative formsnacc
Verb
third-person singular presentsnacks
present participlesnacking
past participlesnacked
pastsnacked

Plural of snack: snacks

Origin of snack

From Middle Dutch snacken (“to snack”). Cognate with German schnäken (“to snack”).

See snatch (transitive verb). Ultimately of the same origin as the word under Etymology 1, but perhaps through a different source.

Words formed from snack

Phrases with snack

Words that rhyme with snack

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about snack

What does snack mean?
Snack means a light meal.
What is snack in Hindi?
Snack in Hindi is नाश्ता (nāśtā), भाग (bhāg), स्नैक (snaik). See Snack meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is snack?
Snack can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce snack?
Snack is pronounced /snæk/.
What is the plural of snack?
The plural of snack is snacks.

Words near snack in the dictionary

  1. snabby
  2. snacc
  3. snaccident
  4. snaccidents
  5. snaccs
  6. snack
  7. snack bar
  8. snack bars
  9. snack box
  10. snack boxes
  11. snack down on

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: snack (page history and authors); फराळ (Marathi) (page history and authors); নাস্তা (Bengali) (page history and authors); snack (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); snack (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); snack (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-snack.wav.

Cite this entry: “snack.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/snack. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.