snap
/snæp/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.21 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A quick breaking or cracking sound or the action of producing such a sound.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "We took a few snaps of the old church before moving on."
- "a ginger snap"
- "It'll be a snap to get that finished."
- "I can fix most vacuum cleaners in a snap."
- "According to Pro Football Focus, Simmons, listed at 6-foot-4 and 238 pounds, played at least 100 snaps at five positions — slot cornerback, edge rusher, linebacker and both safety spots — and finished with 16½ tackles for a loss, eight sacks, eight pass deflections and three interceptions."
- "When I went to put my coat on at snap time, what should go runnin' up my arm but a mouse."
Etymology
Etymology tree Middle Dutch snappen Dutch snappenbor. Low German snappenbor. English snap From Dutch snappen (“to bite; seize”) or Low German snappen (“to bite; seize”), ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *snappōn, from Proto-Germanic *snappōną (“to snap; snatch; chatter”), intensive form of *snapāną (”to snap; grab”, whence Old Norse snapa (“to get; scrounge”)), from Proto-Indo-European *snop-; compare Lithuanian snãpas (“beak, bill”). (One alternative hypothesis links the Germanic words to *snu-, an expressive root deriving words meaning “nose”, “snout”, “sniff” etc., but this is phonetically unsound.) In any case influenced by onomatopoeia; note expressions such as snip-snap, containing the formally unrelated snip. Cognate with West Frisian snappe (“to get; catch; snap”), German schnappen (“to grab”), Swedish snappa (“to snatch”). The verb is derived from the noun.