snag
/snæɡ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.27 in modern English
5
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A stump or base of a branch that has been lopped off; a short branch, or a sharp or rough branch.
noun
A tree, or a branch of a tree, fixed in the bottom of a river or other navigable water, and rising nearly or quite to the surface, by which boats are sometimes pierced and sunk.
noun
Any sharp protuberant part of an object, which may catch, scratch, or tear other objects brought into contact with it.
noun
A problem or difficulty with something.
Example Sentences
- "The coat of arms / Now on a naked snag in triumph borne."
- "‘A’most used-up I am, I do declare!’ she observed. ‘The jolting in the cars is pretty nigh as bad as if the rail was full of snags and sawyers.’"
- "[…]I watched for sunken stones; I was learning to clap my teeth smartly before my heart flew out, when I shaved by a fluke some infernal sly old snag that would have ripped the life out of the tin-pot steamboat and drowned all the pilgrims;[…]"
- "To ſee our Women's Teeth look white. / And ev'ry ſaucy ill-bred Fellow / Sneers at a Mouth profoundly yellow. / In China none hold Women ſweet, / Except their Snags are black as jett."
- "we hit a snag"
- "The snag in this business of falling in love, aged relative, is that the parties of the first part so often get mixed up with the wrong parties of the second part, robbed of their cooler judgment by the parties of the second part's glamour."
Etymology
From earlier snag (“stump or branch of a tree”), from Middle English *snagge, *snage, from Old Norse snagi (“clothes peg”) (compare Old Norse snag-hyrndr (“snag-horned, having jagged corners”)), perhaps related to *sneganą, *snakaną (“to crawl, creep, wind about”) if the original meaning of the root *sneg- was more like “pointy object, stinging creature”. Note also *snakkōną (“to snap at, smack the lips; to blow”) (German schnacken (“to chat”)) and English sneck, snatch. Compare Norwegian snag, snage (“protrusion; projecting point”), Icelandic snagi (“peg”). Also see the Dutch-origin fish names snoek and snook.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *snagge, snagi
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /snæɡ/
- British English: /snæɡ/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Food.