Word.ws English Dictionary

snipe

/snaɪp/

snipe noun: any of various limicoline game birds of the genera Gallinago, Lymnocryptes and Coenocorypha in the family Scolopacidae, having a long, slender, nearly straight beak.

snipe: any of various limicoline game birds of the genera Gallinago, Lymnocryptes and Coenocorypha in the...
Image: Cephas, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

snipe (plural snipes or (only for the bird) snipe)

  1. Any of various limicoline game birds of the genera Gallinago, Lymnocryptes and Coenocorypha in the family Scolopacidae, having a long, slender, nearly straight beak.
  2. 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.c. 1603, William Shakespeare, Othello, act I, scene 3, line 390
  3. A shot fired from a concealed place.
  4. (slang) A member of the engineering department on a ship.
  5. (slang) A goal.

Verb (1)

snipe (third-person singular simple present snipes, present participle sniping, simple past and past participle sniped)

  1. (intransitive) To hunt snipe.
    • The pleasures of Bay bird shooting should not be spoken of in the same sentence with cocking or sniping.1883, Charles Hallock, The Sportsman's Gazetteer and General Guide: The Game Animals, Bird and Fishes of North America; Their Habits and Various Methods of Capture, revised edition
  2. (intransitive) To shoot at individuals from a concealed place.
  3. (broadly, intransitive) To shoot with a sniper rifle.
  4. (transitive) To 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.2003, "Weird Al" Yankovic, eBay (song)
    • 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 minute.2005, Nancy Conner, eBay: The Missing Manual: The Missing Manual, O'Reilly Media, Inc., →ISBN, page 126
  5. (transitive) To nose (a log) to make it drag or slip easily in skidding.
  6. (slang) To score a goal.
  7. 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 Hummels. A flurry of skimmed passes across the wide-open spaces of the Germany defence left Lozano...2018 June 17, Barney Ronay, “Mexico’s Hirving Lozano stuns world champions Germany for brilliant win”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived...

Noun (2)

snipe (plural snipes)

  1. (slang) A cigarette butt.
  2. An end of a log remaining after timber has been cut away.
    Synonyms:
    snipe-end
  3. An animated promotional logo during a television show.
  4. 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.
  5. A bottle of wine measuring 0.1875 liters, one fourth the volume of a standard bottle; a quarter bottle or piccolo.

Noun (3)

snipe (plural snipes)

  1. A sharp, clever answer; sarcasm.
  2. 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!"1983, Joseph V. Melillo, Market the Arts!

Verb (2)

snipe (third-person singular simple present snipes, present participle sniping, simple past and past participle sniped)

  1. (intransitive) To 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 that the Cameron government — made up disproportionately of career politicians who graduated from...2013 May 23, Sarah Lyall, “British Leader’s Liberal Turn Sets Off a Rebellion in His Party”, in New York Times, retrieved 29 May 2013
    • 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.2025 January 25, Ross Douthat, “In the Court of King Trump”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
    Synonyms:
    snark
  2. (transitive) To 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 them.1983, Joseph V. Melillo, Market the Arts!
    • 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 one night to see for myself.2018, Avram Finkelstein, After Silence: A History of AIDS Through Its Images, page 42

Proper noun capitalized: Snipe

Snipe (plural Snipes)

  1. A surname.

snipe meaning in Marathi, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu

snipe in Marathi

स्नाइप करण्यासाठी

snipe in Urdu

سنائپ کریں

snipe in Bengali

স্নাইপ করার জন্য, স্নাইপ করতে

snipe in Telugu

స్నీప్ చేయడానికి
More languagesFewer languages
snipe in Malayalam
അന്നിൽ annil
snipe in Kannada
ಮರೆಯಿಂದ ಗುಂಡು ಹೊಡೆ, ಅಡಗಿ ದಾಳಿಮಾಡು
snipe in Punjabi
ਸੰਨਈਪ
snipe in Gujarati
સ્નાઇપ કરવા માટે, સ્નાઇપ કરવા
snipe in Odia
ସ୍ନାଇପ୍ କରନ୍ତୁ, ସ୍ନାଇପ କରନ୍ତୁ, ସ୍ନାଇପ୍ କରିବା ପାଇଁ
snipe in Nepali
स्नाइप गर्न, स्नाइप गर्नाका लागि
snipe in Thai
นกปากซ่อม nók-bpàak-sɔ̂m, ซุ่มยิง sûm-ying
snipe in Vietnamese
dẽ giun

Examples of snipe in a sentence

  • Snipers do this to avoid bidding wars that escalate the bids to more than they want to pay.2007, Entrepreneur Press, Start Your Own Business on eBay: Your Step-By-Step Guide to Success, Entrepreneur Press, →ISBN, page 64:
  • The successful sniper makes one bid only—and makes it count.2008, Michael Miller, Absolute Beginner's Guide to EBay, Que Publishing, →ISBN, page 68:
  • Hernández sniped away from Jérôme Boateng and Mats Hummels.2018 June 17, Barney Ronay, “Mexico’s Hirving Lozano stuns world champions Germany for brilliant win”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The...

All 19 example sentences with snipe

Synonyms of snipe

Forms of snipe

Noun
pluralsnipes
pluralsnipe
Verb
third-person singular presentsnipes
present participlesniping
past participlesniped
pastsniped
Proper noun
pluralSnipes

Plural of snipe: snipes or snipe

Origin of snipe

From 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 bird was dubbed a sniper. The term sniper was first attested in 1824, in the sense of sharpshooter.

Probably from snip or a cognate

Either from sneap or a figurative development from Etymology 1.

Words formed from snipe

Phrases with snipe

Words that rhyme with snipe

7 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about snipe

What does snipe mean?
Snipe means any of various limicoline game birds of the genera Gallinago, Lymnocryptes and Coenocorypha in the family Scolopacidae, having a long, slender, nearly straight beak.
What is snipe in Marathi?
Snipe in Marathi is स्नाइप करण्यासाठी. See Snipe meaning in Marathi.
How do you use snipe in a sentence?
Snipers do this to avoid bidding wars that escalate the bids to more than they want to pay.
What part of speech is snipe?
Snipe can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce snipe?
Snipe is pronounced /snaɪp/.
What is the plural of snipe?
The plural of snipe is snipes.

Words near snipe in the dictionary

  1. snip-snap-snorem
  2. snip-snap-snorum
  3. snip-snapped
  4. snip-snapping
  5. snip-snaps
  6. snipe
  7. snipe eel
  8. snipe eels
  9. snipe flies
  10. snipe fly
  11. snipe hunt

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: snipe (page history and authors); Snipe (page history and authors); snipe (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); snipe (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); snipe (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); snipe (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); അന്നിൽ (Malayalam) (page history and authors); snipe (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); snipe (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); snipe (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); snipe (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); snipe (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-snipe.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-snipe.wav.

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