SNIPE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Snipe

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noun

Snipe n.

(Zool.) Any one of numerous species of limicoline game birds of the family Scolopacidae, having a long, slender, nearly straight beak. Note: The common, or whole, snipe (Gallinago coelestis) and the great, or double, snipe (Gallinago major), are the most important European species. The Wilson's snipe (Gallinago delicata) (sometimes erroneously called English snipe) and the gray snipe, or dowitcher (Macrohamphus griseus), are well-known American species.

A fool; a blockhead. (R.)

Half snipe, the dunlin; the jacksnipe.

Jack snipe. See Jacksnipe.

Quail snipe. See under Quail.

Robin snipe, the knot.

Sea snipe. See in the Vocabulary.

Shore snipe, any sandpiper.

Snipe hawk, the marsh harrier. (Prov. Eng.)

Stone snipe, the tattler.

Summer snipe, the dunlin; the green and the common European sandpipers.

Winter snipe. See Rock snipe, under Rock.

Woodcock snipe, the great snipe.

verb

Snipe v. t.

To shoot at (detached men of an enemy's force) at long range, esp. when not in action.

To nose (a log) to make it drag or slip easily in skidding.

Snipe v. i. (past & past part. sniped; pres. part. sniping)

To shoot or hunt snipe.

To shoot at detached men of an enemy's forces at long range, esp. when not in action; often with at.

snipe at, to aim petty or snide criticisms at (a person) in his absence.

See images of 'Snipe'

Etymology of 'Snipe'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Snipe" Quotes from Famous Books

... gaudy glare, Showers soft and steaming, Hot and breathless air. Tired of listless dreaming Through the lazy day: Jovial wind of winter Turns us out to play! Sweep the golden reed-beds; Crisp the lazy dyke; Hunger into madness Every plunging pike. Fill the lake with wild-fowl; Fill the marsh with snipe; While on dreary moorlands Lonely curlew pipe. Through the black fir-forest Thunder harsh and dry, Shattering down the snow-flakes Off the curdled sky. Hark! The brave North-easter! Breast-high lies the scent, On by holt and headland, Over heath and bent. Chime, ye dappled ...

— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... anyone be more entirely lost than I? When the gun fired, how should I dare to go down to the boats among those fiends, still smoking from their crime? Would not the first of them who saw me wring my neck like a snipe's? Would not my absence itself be an evidence to them of my alarm, and therefore of my fatal knowledge? It was all over, I thought. Good-by to the Hispaniola, good-by to the squire, the doctor, and the captain. There ...

— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... eye of the sportsman—and the Lancashire gentlemen of the sixteenth century were keen lovers of sport—the country had a strong interest. Pendle forest abounded with game. Grouse, plover, and bittern were found upon its moors; woodcock and snipe on its marshes; mallard, teal, and widgeon upon its pools. In its chases ranged herds of deer, protected by the terrible forest-laws, then in full force: and the hardier huntsman might follow the wolf to his lair in the mountains; might spear the boar in ...

— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... not at all a bad place as headquarters for the sportsman. In the neighbourhood there is very good snipe-shooting in spring and autumn. The fishing too is excellent for trout and grayling. The bear, the wolf, and the chamois are to be met with on the heights, which form this portion of the great horseshoe ...

— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse

... such thing, being a man of a guileless heart, and a spiritual simplicity, that would be ornamental in a child. We then had the latheron summoned before the session, and was not long of making her confess that the father was Nichol Snipe, Lord Glencairn's gamekeeper; and both her and Nichol were obligated to stand in the kirk: but Nichol was a graceless reprobate, for he came with two coats, one buttoned behind him, and another buttoned before him, and two wigs of my lord's, lent him by the valet-de-chamer; ...

— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt

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