SNARE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Snare

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/snɛr/ Listen

noun

Snare n.

A contrivance, often consisting of a noose of cord, or the like, by which a bird or other animal may be entangled and caught; a trap; a gin.

Hence, anything by which one is entangled and brought into trouble. "If thou retire, the Dauphin, well appointed, Stands with the snares of war to tangle thee."

The gut or string stretched across the lower head of a drum.

(Med.) An instrument, consisting usually of a wireloop or noose, for removing tumors, etc., by avulsion.

Snare drum, the smaller common military drum, as distinguished from the bass drum; so called because (in order to render it more resonant) it has stretched across its lower head a catgut string or strings.

verb

Snare v. t. (past & past part. snared; pres. part. snaring) To catch with a snare; to insnare; to entangle; hence, to bring into unexpected evil, perplexity, or danger. "Lest that too heavenly form... snare them." "The mournful crocodile With sorrow snares relenting passengers."

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Etymology of 'Snare'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Snare" Quotes from Famous Books

... morning, just in time for the cook to open the kitchen door, and enable that gong to slam us across the house, sometimes breaking a window with one or the other of us. At the end of a week we recognized that this switch business was a delusion and a snare. We also discovered that a band of burglars had been lodging in the house the whole time—not exactly to steal, for there wasn't much left now, but to hide from the police, for they were hot pressed, and they shrewdly judged that the detectives would never think of a tribe of burglars ...

— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... was scarcely out of hearing before Polydectes burst into a laugh, being greatly amused, wicked king that he was, to find how readily the young man fell into the snare. The news quickly spread abroad that Perseus had undertaken to cut off the head of Medusa with the snaky locks. Everybody was rejoiced, for most of the inhabitants of the island were as wicked as the king himself ...

— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various

... not cry aloud to thee, O soul, "Yes, by the Cyprian, thou wilt be caught, poor lover, if thou flutterest so often near the lime- twigs"? did I not cry aloud? and the snare has taken thee. Why dost thou gasp vainly in the toils? Love himself has bound thy wings and set thee on the fire, and sprinkled thee to swooning with perfumes, and given thee in thy thirst ...

— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail

... of bright water has always been irresistible to me, a snare and a temptation I have hardly ever been able to withstand; and various are the chances of drowning it has afforded me in the wild mountain brooks of Massachusetts. I think a very attached maid of mine once saved my life by the tearful expostulations with which she opposed the bewitching ...

— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... so much molten copper into the hood of her cloak, and trying desperately to snare all the wild, escaping tendrils with the softer mesh of her veil, she reached out a free hand at last and opened the ...

— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

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