Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To cut, clip, or separate (something) with short, quick strokes.
- intransitive verb To cut or clip with short, quick strokes.
- noun An instance of snipping or the sound produced by snipping.
- noun A small cut made with scissors or shears.
- noun A small piece cut or clipped off.
- noun A bit or scrap.
- noun One that is small or slight in size or stature.
- noun A person regarded as impertinent or mischievous.
- noun Hand shears used in cutting sheet metal.
- noun Slang Something easily accomplished.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A clip; a single cut with shears or scissors; hence, any similar act of cutting.
- noun A small piece cut off; a shred; a bit.
- noun A share; a snack. See
to go snips , below. - noun A tailor.
- To cut off at one light, quick stroke with shears or scissors; clip; cut off in any way: frequently with off.
- To steal by snipping.
- To make by snipping or cutting: as, to
snip a hole in one's coat. - To move or work lightly; make signs with, as the fingers.
- To make a short, quick cut or clip; cut out a bit; clip: sometimes with at for the attempt to cut.
- noun A small, insignificant person or thing: as, a mere snip of a girl.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To cut off the nip or neb of, or to cut off at once with shears or scissors; to clip off suddenly; to nip; hence, to break off; to snatch away.
- noun A single cut, as with shears or scissors; a clip.
- noun A small shred; a bit cut off.
- noun obsolete A share; a snack.
- noun Slang A tailor.
- noun Small hand shears for cutting sheet metal.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To cut with short sharp actions, as with
scissors . - verb To reduce the price of a product, to create a snip.
- verb informal To
circumcise . - noun The act of
snipping ;cutting a small amount off of something. - noun Something acquired for a low price; a
bargain . - noun A small amount of something; a
pinch . - noun definite, euphemistic A
vasectomy . - noun A small or weak person, especially a young one.
- noun obsolete A
share orportion ; asnack . - noun obsolete, slang A
tailor .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a small piece of anything (especially a piece that has been snipped off)
- verb sever or remove by pinching or snipping
- noun the act of clipping or snipping
- verb cultivate, tend, and cut back the growth of
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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She snipped three roses with astonishing swiftness, -- _snip, snip, snip_!
If Winter Comes 1925
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And here's a snip from the aforementioned HuffPo piece by Sam Stein:
Boing Boing 2009
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Here is a snip from the part devoted to shock auteur Jim Powers:
Boing Boing 2009
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Here's a snip from a news article that describes her with the derogatory term "hermaphrodite":
Boing Boing 2009
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Here's a snip from a feature in New York Magazine about freaked-out workers on Wall Street who gazed into the abyss with a closer view than the rest of us, and made survival plans:
Boing Boing 2009
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Over here the snip is pretty much only done for religious reasons.
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And snip from a related article by Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides on Wired News:
Boing Boing 2008
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Just spotted on Twitter (search: mumbai or #mumbai) and via chat sessions here in the Boing Boing tv studio: Attacks in Bombay (NYT), and here's a snip from the Times of India report:
Boing Boing 2008
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Here's a snip from the latest post on Kevin Kelly's Technium blog:
Boing Boing 2008
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Over at NYT finance correspondent Floyd Norris 'excellent blog, a snip from a terrifying report out today from The Levy Forecasting Center at Bard College.
Boing Boing 2008
Louises commented on the word snip
A modest villa up a hundred rough steps overlooking the little harbour town of Konia, an off-season short-notice snip at 1,200 euros a week. From "The Last Werewolf" by Glen Duncan.
March 19, 2012
MaryW commented on the word snip
Misha Angrist, Here is a Human Being: At the Dawn of Personal Genomics (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), ch. 4 (Kindle loc. 1000)December 17, 2016