snap
Done, made, performed, etc., quickly and unexpectedly, or without deliberationDone, made, performed, etc., quickly and unexpectedly, or without deliberation.
Recorded US: Dvortygirl, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Meaning
1 senses(attributive, informal, not comparable)Done, made, performed, etc., quickly and unexpectedly, or without deliberation.
a snap judgment or decision
a snap political convention
Origin
From Dutch snappen (“to bite; seize”) or Low German snappen (“to bite; seize”), ultimatelyFrom Dutch snappen (“to bite; seize”) or Low German snappen (“to bite; seize”), ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *snappōn, from Proto-Germanic *snappōną (“to snap; snatch; chatter”), intensive form of *snapāną (”to snap; grab”, whence Old Norse snapa (“to get; scrounge”)), from Proto-Indo-European *snop-; compare Lithuanian snãpas (“beak, bill”). (One alternative hypothesis links the Germanic words to *snu-, an expressive root deriving words meaning “nose”, “snout”, “sniff” etc., but this is phonetically unsound.) In any case influenced by onomatopoeia; note expressions such as snip-snap, containing the formally unrelated snip.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Word family
1 related wordsSee also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.