snib
/snɪb/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "He did not like me coming in except if I was going to bed. I heard him saying to my maw about a snib for the door."
- "ill - strain'd snibs"
- "Window is snibbed on the inner side. Framework is solid. No hinges at the side. Let us open it."
- "All moved to the front street, where Grierson snibbed on his tail-light and turned to ask the trooper, "They've got the main road ploughed up farther on, haven't they?""
- "As at the stok the bere; Snybbith the hardy houndis that ar ken."
Etymology
To the same root as snub. For the sense reprimant, compare cognate Old Norse sneypa (“to rebuff, infringe, etc”). The etymology appears visible in Nordic cognates, to an original sense of “pinching off” (→ “to repress, infringe”), really “snipping off” (Old Norse sneypa, Norwegian Nynorsk snøypa, Swedish snöpa, snoppa, snipa, snippa (“to pinch off, to squeeze off, to castrate”)), with nouns denoting “pinched end → point” (cf. Swedish snip (“snout, spout”), snibb (“lobe”)). The latch sense could stem from older latches which were lobe-shaped, then analog to Swedish snibb (“lobe”). Another idea could be that the 'latch action' derives from the action of “pinching off” becoming “closing off”. A third idea could be that it derives from reprimanding through “locking” a door. The term may also have been affected by words like snap via the “snapping” action of a latch.
Regional Pronunciation
- British English: /snɪb/