sneap

sneap

See also: snèap

English

WOTD – 9 March 2022

Etymology

The verb is a variant of snape,[1] from Middle English snaipen (“to injure; of sleet or snow: to nip; to criticize, rebuke, revile”) [and other forms],[2] from Old Norse sneypa (“to disgrace, dishonour; to outrage”), from Proto-Germanic *snaupijaną, from Proto-Germanic *snūpaną, *snūbaną (“to cut, snap”); further origin unknown.

The noun is derived from the verb.[3]

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /sniːp/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /snip/
• Rhymes: -iːp

Verb

sneap (third-person singular simple present sneaps, present participle sneaping, simple past and past participle sneaped) (transitive, archaic or Britain, dialectal)

1. To bite, nip, or pinch (someone or something).
2. (also figuratively) To check or abruptly reprove (someone); to chide, to rebuke, to reprimand.

   Synonym: (archaic or Britain, dialectal) snape

   • 1611, Thomas Middleton, The Lady's Tragedy:

     Nay, I am gone. I'm a man quickly sneaped.

   • 1623 February 12 (Gregorian calendar), Jos[eph] Hall, The Great Impostor, Laid Open in a Sermon at Grayes Inne, Febr. 2. 1623, London: […] J. Haviland for Nath[aniel] Butter, OCLC 1172633290, page 21:

     That vvee doe enough hate our corruptions, vvhen (at our ſharpeſt) vve doe but gently ſneape them, […]

   • 1642, H[enry] M[ore], “ΑΝΤΙΨΥΧΟΠΑΝΝΥΧΙΑ [Antipsychopannychia], or A Confutation of the Sleep of the Soul after Death”, in ΨΥΧΩΔΙΑ [Psychōdia] Platonica: Or A Platonicall Song of the Soul, […], Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Roger Daniel, printer to the Universitie, OCLC 1049141463, canto 3, stanza 18, page 26:

     But life that's here, / VVhen into it the ſoul doth cloſely vvind, / Is often ſneep'd by anguiſh and by fear, / VVith vexing pain and range that ſhe no'te eaſly bear.

   • 2008, Ethel Wilson, ‎P.K. Page, The Innocent Traveller, page 6:

     John, the correct one, who could make you feel sneaped. John never felt sneaped. If you were a dog, being sneaped would be the same as going off with your tail between your legs. If you were Topaz, people tried to sneap you, but you were hard to sneap. Even the pround gentle Annie, the eldest, could be sneaped by a look, but never John.

3. (informal) To offend (someone); to put (someone's) nose out of joint.
   • 1906, Lucy Hutchinson, ‎Julius Hutchinson, Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson, page 315:

     Some days after he, in a civil manner, sent a captain with them and other soldiers to Owthorpe, to inquire into their misdemeanours before their faces; which being confirmed to him, and he beginning to rebuke them, they set him at light, even before Mrs. Hutchinson's face, and made the poor man retire sneaped to his colonel;

   • 1911, Arnold Bennett, Hilda Lessways:

     And moreover she was convinced that her mother, secretly very flattered and delighted by the visit, was adopting a derisive attitude in order to 'show off' before her daughter. Parents are thus ingenuous! But she was so shocked and sneaped that she found it more convenient to say nothing.

   • 1983, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, Official Report of the Standing Committees, page 683:

     As I have often had causee to remark before, my hon. Friend, though appearing to be a hard-boiled member of the Committee is in fact very tender, and, as we say in north Staffordshire, easily sneaped or upset. He has been sneaped by the Government Whip's elevation.

Alternative forms

• sneep (obsolete), snipe

Translations

to bite, nip, or pinch (someone or something) — see bite,‎ nip,‎ pinch

to check or abruptly reprove (someone) — see chide,‎ rebuke,‎ reprimand

Noun

sneap (plural sneaps)

1. (obsolete) A rebuke; a reprimand.
   • c. 1596–1599, William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act II, scene i], page 26:

     My Lord I will not vndergoe this ſnepe vvithout reply, […]

References

1. “sneap, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2020.
2. “snaipen, v.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
3. “sneap, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2019.

Anagrams

• Aspen, NAPEs, Panes, Snape, Spean, aspen, napes, neaps, panes, peans, snape, spane, spean