Source etymology 1
Original entry ↗Any of various limicoline game birds of the genera Gallinago, Lymnocryptes and Coenocorypha in the family Scolopacidae, having a long, slender, nearly straight beak. · A fool; a blockhead. · A shot fired from a concealed place. · A member of the engineering department on a ship.
To hunt snipe. · To shoot at individuals from a concealed place. · To shoot with a sniper rifle. · To watch a timed online auction and place a winning bid against (the current high bidder) at the last possible moment.
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.
Relationships mentioned by the source
These are extracted mentions, not a timeline or a verified sequence of immediate parents.
This page abbreviates 4 auxiliary source items. The etymology narrative is not shortened. Omission counts are available in the audit fields below; consult the original for complete auxiliary material.
Inspect preserved source fields
Raw extraction fields are retained for auditing. Their order does not establish ancestry.
{
"templates": [
{
"name": "inh",
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "enm",
"3": "snipe"
},
"expansion": "Middle English snipe"
},
{
"name": "der",
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "non",
"3": "snípa"
},
"expansion": "Old Norse snípa"
},
{
"name": "cog",
"args": {
"1": "no",
"2": "snipe"
},
"expansion": "Norwegian snipe"
},
{
"name": "etydate",
"args": {
"1": "1824",
"nocap": "1"
},
"expansion": "first attested in 1824"
}
],
"links": [
[
"snipe",
"snipe#Middle_English"
],
[
"snype",
"snype#Middle_English"
],
[
"snípa",
"snípa#Old_Norse"
],
[
"mýrisnípa",
"mýrisnípa#Old_Norse"
],
[
"snipe",
"snipe#Norwegian"
]
],
"references": [],
"descendants": [],
"lexical": [
{
"pos": "noun",
"glosses": [
"Any of various limicoline game birds of the genera Gallinago, Lymnocryptes and Coenocorypha in the family Scolopacidae, having a long, slender, nearly straight beak.",
"A fool; a blockhead.",
"A shot fired from a concealed place.",
"A member of the engineering department on a ship."
],
"tags": [
"slang"
],
"recordId": "0471e46085ab068ceed5686b7afff1d4afd07bac094618423775df7f3c8aee6a",
"rawRecordSha256": "7903c9e4a5334fdada4b23761f02dd9b62fe80f25c564f4288640e4c2d80f8c3",
"sourceRecordOrdinal": 239710
},
{
"pos": "verb",
"glosses": [
"To hunt snipe.",
"To shoot at individuals from a concealed place.",
"To shoot with a sniper rifle.",
"To watch a timed online auction and place a winning bid against (the current high bidder) at the last possible moment."
],
"tags": [
"intransitive",
"broadly",
"transitive"
],
"recordId": "5c5784d8942668e692985110817b37027291166dc25ed42e6c4f1555df96dfe0",
"rawRecordSha256": "27b8b450c191127fe8e13db7a43fcc0e7c864e21665e5c14a2ab6e92c1df5a81",
"sourceRecordOrdinal": 239711
}
],
"omittedAuxiliaryFields": {
"templates": 0,
"links": 0,
"references": 0,
"descendants": 0,
"lexicalRecords": 0,
"lexicalSenses": 4,
"glosses": 0
}
}