snark

See also: Snark and snȧrk

English

Pronunciation
  • enPR: snärk, IPA(key): /snɑː(ɹ)k/
  • Rhymes: -ɑː(r)k

Etymology 1

This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

Compare Low German snarken, North Frisian snarke, Swedish snarka,[1] and English snort, and snore. Noun sense of “snide remarks” derived from snarky (1906), from snark (v.) "to snort" (1866), from Middle English snarken. Word Origin: early 20th cent.: from dialect verb snark ‘snore, snort’, ‘find fault’.

Noun

snark (uncountable)

  1. Snide remarks.
Synonyms

Verb

snark (third-person singular simple present snarks, present participle snarking, simple past and past participle snarked)

  1. To express oneself in a snarky fashion
    • 2009, January 23, “Dwight Garner”, in The Mahvelous and the Damned‎:
      Other would-be Bright Young People, Lytton Strachey snarked, seemed to have “just a few feathers where brains should be.”
  2. (obsolete) To snort.
Derived terms

Etymology 2

From Snark. Coined by Lewis Carroll as a nonce word in 1874 The Hunting of the Snark, about the quest for an elusive creature. In sense of “a type of mathematical graph”, named as such in 1976 by Martin Gardner for their elusiveness.[2]

Noun

snark (plural snarks)

  1. (mathematics) A graph in which every node has three branches, and the edges cannot be coloured in fewer than four colours without two edges of the same colour meeting at a point.
  2. (physics) A fluke or unrepeatable result or detection in an experiment.
    Cabrera's Valentine's Day monopole detection or some extremely energetic cosmic rays could be examples of snarks.

References
  1. “snarky” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.
  2. Martin Gardner, Mathematical Games, Scientific American, issue 234, volume 4, pp. 126–130, 1976.

Anagrams

Icelandic

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /stnar̥k/
  • Rhymes: -ar̥k

Noun

snark n (genitive singular snarks, no plural)

  1. crackle (of a fire)

Declension
declension of snark
n-s singular
indefinite definite
nominative snark snarkið
accusative snark snarkið
dative snarki snarkinu
genitive snarks snarksins

Westrobothnian

Etymology

From snórk. Cognate with Smalandian snarke m, Helsingian snárse, snarkse m, snarka f, Norwegian snerkje m.

Noun

snark m (nominative & accusative definite singular snarken)

  1. Skin, wrinkled skin-film which forms on porridge and gruel.
  2. Cream.

Alternative forms
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