sneak
/sniːk/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.99 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
One who sneaks; one who moves stealthily to acquire an item or information.
noun
A cheat; a con artist.
noun
A play where the quarterback receives the snap and immediately dives forward.
noun
Example Sentences
- "My little brother is such a sneak; yesterday I caught him trying to look through my diary."
- "I can't believe I gave that sneak $50 for a ticket when they were selling for $20 at the front gate."
- "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."
- "At a "sneak preview," of course, the public is also on hand and can make their reactions felt much to the humiliation of the principals. At a sneak of "The Sandpiper," starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the audience laughed so loud during one love scene that the dejected producer promptly cut the scene out of the picture. At a sneak of "The Outrage" in San Francisco it was decided not to give names at the outset to test public response: nearly half the audience left before the picture was 20 minutes old. […] The worst sneak, it is told, occurred one night when nearly the entire audience marched out on "Paris When It Sizzles” leaving the producer and director alone and forlorn in the theater."
- "An exciting lineup of pre-release screenings, giving audiences nationwide a chance to see the top new offerings before their official release. Films include:[…] ▪ A sneak preview of the new Highball.TV film Mother of All Shows at the Stirling Festival Theatre in Stirling, ON, where the film was shot. With director Melissa D’Agostino. ▪ In Vancouver, a sneak of The Great Salish Heist, Darrell Dennis’ hilarious new no-budget Indigenous caper flick."
- "He decided to sneak into the kitchen for a second cookie while his mom was on the phone."
Etymology
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: sniken, snīcan, *snīkan, *snīkaną
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
Frequently Paired Words
covert
move slowly