Word.ws English Dictionary

sneak

/sniːk/

sneak noun: one who sneaks; one who moves stealthily to acquire an item or information. Also the ellipsis of sneak preview.

Noun

sneak (plural sneaks)

  1. One who sneaks; one who moves stealthily to acquire an item or information.
    • My little brother is such a sneak; yesterday I caught him trying to look through my diary.
  2. The act of sneaking
  3. A cheat; a con artist.
    • I can't believe I gave that sneak $50 for a ticket when they were selling for $20 at the front gate.
  4. An informer; a tell-tale.
  5. (obsolete) A ball bowled so as to roll along the ground; a daisy-cutter
  6. (US) A sneaker; a tennis shoe.
    • We would have been laughed off the street in Philadelphia if we were seen wearing sneaks. In the big city, the young population wore loafers or boots.2014, Faye McKnight, Goodnight, Bob, page 9
  7. A play where the quarterback receives the snap and immediately dives forward.
  8. (derogatory, slang) An unworthy or deceptive entry in a list of high-ranking people or things.

Verb

sneak (third-person singular simple present sneaks, present participle sneaking, simple past and past participle sneaked or snuck)

  1. (intransitive) To creep or go stealthily; to come or go while trying to avoid detection, as a person who does not wish to be seen.
    • He decided to sneak into the kitchen for a second cookie while his mom was on the phone.
    • Some of these were dressed most gorgeously, others becomingly, and several sneaked in with fantail bangers, calling themselves "Gentlemen of the Nineteenth Century."1885 July 9, The Hamilton Spectator, page 4
    Synonyms:
    skulk, steal, slink
  2. (transitive) To take (something) in a surreptitious manner, so as to avoid being noticed.
    • Near-synonyms: pilfer, filch
    • I went to sneak a chocolate but my dad caught me.
    Synonyms:
    pilfer, filch
  3. (ditransitive) To stealthily bring someone something.
    • She asked me to sneak her a phone next month.
  4. (dated, transitive) To hide, especially in a mean or cowardly manner.
    • [Slander] sneaks its head.1701, William Wake, A rationale upon some texts of Scripture
  5. (informal, intransitive, with-on) To inform an authority of another's misdemeanours.
    • If you sneak on me I'll bash you!
    Synonyms:
    grass, snitch, tell tales

Adjective

sneak (not comparable)

  1. In advance; before release to the general public.
    • The company gave us a sneak look at their new electronic devices.
  2. In a stealthy or surreptitious manner.
    • I was able to get a sneak peek at the guest list.
    • I have ordered House Atreides to occupy Arrakis to mine the spice, thus replacing their enemies the Harkonnens. House Atreides will not refuse because of the tremendous power they think they will gain. Then, at an appointed time, Baron Harkonnen will return to Arrakis and launch a sneak attack on...1984, 8:38 from the start, in Dune (Science Fiction), →OCLC

Also used as

sneak is also the ellipsis of sneak preview.

sneak meaning in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada

sneak in Tamil

ஸ்னீக்

sneak in Telugu

స్నీక్

sneak in Malayalam

സ്നീക്ക്

sneak in Kannada

ಸ್ನೀಕ್
More languagesFewer languages
sneak in Gujarati
સ્નીક
sneak in Nepali
स्नीक
sneak in Arabic
تَسَلَّلَ tasallala
sneak in Thai
ย่อง yɔ̂ng
sneak in Vietnamese
lẻn

Examples of sneak in a sentence

  • The insurgents snuck up close and mortared the base last night.
  • There's quite a gap, so you may be able to sneak under.
  • I snuck a look at his chart. It doesn't look good.

All 40 example sentences with sneak

Synonyms of sneak

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of sneak

Forms of sneak

Noun
pluralsneaks
Verb
third-person singular presentsneaks
present participlesneaking
past participlesneaked
pastsneaked
past participlesnuck
pastsnuck

Past tense of sneak: sneaked or snuck

Plural of sneak: sneaks

Origin of sneak

Possibly from Middle English sniken (“to creep, crawl”), from Old English snīcan (“to creep, crawl”), from Proto-West Germanic *snīkan, from Proto-Germanic *snīkaną (“to creep, crawl”), of sound-symbolic origin; compare formally unrelated snake, snoop, snook, snoke, and snoot. Cognate with Danish snige (“to sneak”), Swedish snika (“to sneak, hanker after”), Icelandic sníkja (“to sneak, hanker after”). Possibly related to snitch.

Words formed from sneak

Phrases with sneak

Words that rhyme with sneak

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about sneak

What does sneak mean?
Sneak means one who sneaks; one who moves stealthily to acquire an item or information.
What is sneak in Tamil?
Sneak in Tamil is ஸ்னீக். See Sneak meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is sneak?
Sneak can be a noun, a verb or an adjective.
How do you pronounce sneak?
Sneak is pronounced /sniːk/.
What is the plural of sneak?
The plural of sneak is sneaks.

Words near sneak in the dictionary

  1. SNE
  2. snead
  3. sneaded
  4. sneading
  5. sneads
  6. sneak
  7. sneak around
  8. sneak current
  9. sneak currents
  10. sneak in
  11. sneak out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sneak (page history and authors); sneak (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); sneak (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); sneak (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); sneak (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); sneak (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); sneak (Nepali, 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: en-au-sneak.ogg.

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