snick
Americanverb (used with object)
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snicks,
present (3rd person singular)
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snicked,
past participle, past
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snicking
present participle
-
to cut, snip, or nick.
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to strike sharply.
He snicked the ball with his cue.
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to snap or click (a gun, trigger, etc.).
verb (used without object)
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snicks,
present (3rd person singular)
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snicked,
past participle, past
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snicking
present participle
noun
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a small cut; nick.
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a click.
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Cricket.
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a glancing blow given to the ball.
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the ball so hit.
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noun
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a small cut; notch
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a knot in thread, etc
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cricket
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a glancing blow off the edge of the bat
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the ball so hit
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verb
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to cut a small corner or notch in (material, etc)
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cricket to hit (the ball) with a snick
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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snicksimple
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snickssimple
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have snickedperfect
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has snickedperfect
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am snickingprogressive
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are snickingprogressive
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is snickingprogressive
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have been snickingperfect progressive
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has been snickingperfect progressive
Past
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snickedsimple
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had snickedperfect
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was snickingprogressive
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were snickingprogressive
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had been snickingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of snick
1550–60; origin uncertain; compare Scots sneck to cut (off ), Old Norse snikka to whittle
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Off Anderson's bowling, Labuschagne offered a regulation snick from a back-foot drive only for Buttler to spill the ball at a comfortable height moving to his right.
From BBC ● Dec. 16, 2021
It snaps on the back of a caseless iPhone with a satisfying snick.
From The Verge ● Jul. 23, 2021
It crunches around in the glass, and you can hear its eyes snick in their sockets as it anxiously looks all around your small apartment.
From Slate ● May 30, 2020
Moeen Ali strikes, two balls after the drinks break, getting one to drift into Elgar and then spin enough to snick through to Bairstow!
From The Guardian ● Jan. 14, 2016
Gitl made a small snick of annoyance between her teeth and wiped up the spill with the edge of her apron.
From "The Devil's Arithmetic" by Jane Yolen
Manly Mando thwacks and snicks his way through all opponents while scarcely breaking a sweat.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026
They're fluffy and cakey without being too fluffy or too cakey like some snicks.
From Salon ● Oct. 15, 2022
I love the way a makeup compact snicks shut or how a luxury car door closes with a kind of airlock seal or — yes — how a classic Razr flips open.
From The Verge ● Feb. 13, 2020
The sixth ball snicks off his edge through third slip, and Cook whips his head around in panic to see if he has been spared.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 9, 2010
Now there were no edgings through the slips and snicks to leg.
From Psmith in the City by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
Root snicked it and Morris, who took a blinder earlier to dismiss Cook, couldn’t hang on to a very sharp chance as he dived to his left.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 2, 2016
The stone slipped on between the two trotting sweepers, snicked the two guard stones away and came to rest plunk in the center.
From Time Magazine Archive
The wheelchair rolled slowly toward a blank wall, and an invisible door snicked open just before it arrived.
From Garth and the Visitor by Joseph Wesley
The feeding mechanism snicked and the fresh shell clicked as it slid into the breech.
From The World That Couldn't Be by Clifford D. Simak
“Well, thee hasn’t got thee head snicked off yet, Joe?”
From The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit by Richard Harris
He can show two flacks of opposed allegiance snicking at each other with unsheathed falsehoods, and trace the exact grimace of the loser.
From Time Magazine Archive
She had woken up at night to escape from a familiar, recurrent dream in which policemen approached her with snicking scissors, wanting to hack off her hair.
From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
"I guess," she said, taking a box of cartridges from the top shelf and snicking open the sealing with a finger nail, "I guess I'd better load this rifle."
From The Rider of Golden Bar by William Patterson White
Calculations were made how to cut the stuff to advantage, and in due course the heavy scissors were heard snick, snick, snicking all day long.
From Hard Cash by Charles Reade
A bye brought Henfrey to the batting end again, and de Freece’s pet googly, which had not been much in evidence hitherto, led to his snicking an easy catch into short-slip’s hands.
From Mike by P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
