Word.ws English Dictionary

snip-snap

snip-snap verb: to shut, close, bite, etc., with a brisk snap.

Verb

snip-snap (third-person singular simple present snip-snaps, present participle snip-snapping, simple past and past participle snip-snapped)

  1. To shut, close, bite, etc., with a brisk snap.
    • He had picked a small section of scrub behind his shanty which the lagoon below cut into paintable patterns, and with easel snip-snapped up and palette set, was going through the essential preliminary of peering at it[.]1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 40
    • No doubt of it, Edmund was at grips with that bumptious little hairy dog. They were going it at the very top note of sadistic fury, screaming and snip-snapping in such a lightning mixture of black and white murder that the eye could not follow it.1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 140

Noun

snip-snap (plural snip-snaps)

  1. A sharp snapping sound.
  2. (idiomatic) A tart dialogue with quick replies.
    • snip-snap short, and interruption smart1728, [Alexander Pope], “(please specify the page)”, in The Dunciad. An Heroic Poem. […], Dublin; London: […] A. Dodd, →OCLC
    • The daily snip-snaps and hubbubs between the cross-purposed couple accentuated that tendency in her. After each altercation Mrs. Coley was seized with an hysterical attack, and my services were needed.1933, American Medicine, volume 39, page 73

Forms of snip-snap

Verb
third-person singular presentsnip-snaps
present participlesnip-snapping
past participlesnip-snapped
pastsnip-snapped
Noun
pluralsnip-snaps

Origin of snip-snap

Reduplication of snap.

Questions about snip-snap

What does snip-snap mean?
Snip-snap means to shut, close, bite, etc., with a brisk snap.
What part of speech is snip-snap?
Snip-snap can be a verb or a noun.
What is the past tense of snip-snap?
The past tense of snip-snap is snip-snapped.

Words near snip-snap in the dictionary

  1. snilched
  2. snilches
  3. snilching
  4. Snily
  5. snip
  6. snip-snap
  7. snip-snap-snorem
  8. snip-snap-snorum
  9. snip-snapped
  10. snip-snapping
  11. snip-snaps

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: snip-snap (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.

Last updated:

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