Word.ws English Dictionary

snarl

/ˈsnɑː(ɹ)l/

snarl verb: to entangle; to complicate; to involve in knots.

snarl: to entangle; to complicate; to involve in knots
Image: Trilobite2, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb (1)

snarl (third-person singular simple present snarls, present participle snarling, simple past and past participle snarled)

  1. (transitive) To entangle; to complicate; to involve in knots.
    • to snarl a skein of thread
    • And from her backe her garments she did teare, / And from her head oft rent her snarled heare[…]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 17
  2. (intransitive) To become entangled.
  3. (transitive) To place in an embarrassing situation; to ensnare; to make overly complicated.
    • November 9, 1550, Hugh Latimer, Sermon Preached at Stanford
      [the] question that they would have snarled him with
  4. (intransitive, transitive) To be congested in traffic, or to make traffic congested.
  5. To form raised work upon the outer surface of (thin metal ware) by the repercussion of a snarling iron upon the inner surface; to repoussé

Noun (1)

snarl (plural snarls)

  1. A knot or complication of hair, thread, or the like, difficult to disentangle.
    • His eye was alerted by a flutter of white seen through the snarl of branches between his stump and the Mere, and on looking more closely was surprised to see Mary sitting about a hundred yards below him on a mossy log, opposite the islet.1966, R. F. Delderfield, A Horseman Riding By, Open Road Media
    Synonyms:
    entanglement
  2. An intricate complication; a problematic difficulty; a knotty or tangled situation.
    • Bond grinned again as he thought of Damon's exasperation at having to dish out a lot of soft soap to Washington when he probably had plenty of other Anglo-American snarls to disentangle.1954, Ian Fleming, “True or False?”, in Live and Let Die, London: Pan Books, published 1957, page 89
    Synonyms:
    imbroglio
  3. A slow-moving traffic jam.
    • The biggest cities feel the most acute impact of the last mile – of the squads of trucks and vans, the parcel hubs and sorting centres, the parking snarls and the discarded boxes.2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian

Verb (2)

snarl (third-person singular simple present snarls, present participle snarling, simple past and past participle snarled)

  1. (intransitive) To growl angrily by gnashing or baring the teeth; to gnarl; to utter grumbling sounds.
  2. (transitive) To complain angrily; to utter growlingly.
  3. (intransitive) To speak crossly; to talk in rude, surly terms.
    • It is malicious and unmanly to snarl at the little lapses of a pen, from which Virgil himself stands not exempted.1697, John Dryden, “Preface to the Pastorals, with a Short Defence of Virgil, against Some of the Reflections of Monsieur Fontanelle [i.e., Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle]”, in Virgil, translated by...

Noun (2)

snarl (plural snarls)

  1. The act of snarling; a growl; a surly or peevish expression; an angry contention.
  2. A growl, for example that of an angry or surly dog, or similar; grumbling sounds.
  3. A squabble.

snarl meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Kannada and Sanskrit

snarl in Tamil

உறுமுதல், சீறுதல்

snarl in Urdu

گانٹھ, گرہ, گتھی, الجھانا

snarl in Kannada

ಗುರುಗುಟ್ಟುವುದು, ಗುರುಗುರು ಶಬ್ದ, ಗುರುಗುಟ್ಟು, ಗುರ್ರೆನ್ನು, ಕೂಗಿ ಹೇಳು, ಎಚ್ಚರಿಸು

snarl in Sanskrit

to snarl
रिफ् riph

Examples of snarl in a sentence

  • The raging hound's flews were twisted upwards in an angry snarl.
  • The snarling dog scared me away without ever opening its mouth.
  • "Debate me, coward!" snarled the completely normal intellectual.

All 40 example sentences with snarl

Synonyms of snarl

3 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of snarl

Forms of snarl

Verb
third-person singular presentsnarls
present participlesnarling
past participlesnarled
pastsnarled
Noun
pluralsnarls

Past tense of snarl: snarled

Origin of snarl

From Middle English snarlen, frequentative of snaren (“to trap, tangle”). Equivalent to snare + -le.

Frequentative of earlier snar (“to growl”), perhaps from Middle Low German snorren (“to drone”), of probably imitative origin. Equivalent to snar + -le. Related to German schnarren (“to rattle”) and schnurren (“to hum, buzz”).

Words formed from snarl

Phrases with snarl

Words that rhyme with snarl

Questions about snarl

What does snarl mean?
Snarl means to entangle; to complicate; to involve in knots.
What is snarl in Tamil?
Snarl in Tamil is உறுமுதல், சீறுதல். See Snarl meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is snarl?
Snarl can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce snarl?
Snarl is pronounced /ˈsnɑː(ɹ)l/.
What is the past tense of snarl?
The past tense of snarl is snarled.

Words near snarl in the dictionary

  1. snarkishly
  2. snarkless
  3. snarks
  4. snarktastic
  5. snarky
  6. snarl
  7. snarl up
  8. snarl word
  9. snarl words
  10. snarl-up
  11. snarl-ups

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: snarl (page history and authors); snarl (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); snarl (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); snarl (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); रिफ् (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). 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.

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

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