snipe
Americannoun
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Also snite any of several long-billed game birds of the genera Gallinago (sometimesCapella ) and Limnocryptes, inhabiting marshy areas, as G. gallinago common snipe, orwhole snipe, of Eurasia and North America, having barred and striped white, brown, and black plumage.
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any of several other long-billed birds, as some sandpipers.
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a shot, usually from a hidden position.
verb (used without object)
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to shoot or hunt snipe.
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to shoot at individuals as opportunity offers from a concealed or distant position.
The enemy was sniping from the roofs.
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to attack a person or a person's work with petulant or snide criticism, especially anonymously or from a safe distance.
noun
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any of various birds of the genus Gallinago (or Capella ) and related genera, such as G. gallinago ( common or Wilson's snipe ), of marshes and river banks, having a long straight bill: family Scolopacidae (sandpipers, etc), order Charadriiformes
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any of various similar related birds, such as certain sandpipers and curlews
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a shot, esp a gunshot, fired from a place of concealment
verb
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to attack (a person or persons) with a rifle from a place of concealment
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to criticize adversely a person or persons from a position of security
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(intr) to hunt or shoot snipe
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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snipesimple
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snipessimple
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have snipedperfect
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has snipedperfect
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am snipingprogressive
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are snipingprogressive
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is snipingprogressive
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have been snipingperfect progressive
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has been snipingperfect progressive
Past
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snipedsimple
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had snipedperfect
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was snipingprogressive
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were snipingprogressive
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had been snipingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of snipe
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English snype (noun), from Old Norse -snīpa (in mȳrisnīpa “moor snipe”); cognate with Norwegian snipa, Icelandic snīpa; compare Danish sneppe, German Schnepfe
Explanation
A long-beaked bird that lives in marshes and swamps is called a snipe. As a verb, to snipe is to attack someone in a snide way — something a snipe would never do, because birds aren't that petty. You can find the well-camouflaged shorebird known as the snipe just about everywhere in the world. These birds are famously difficult for hunters to shoot, as they blend in well with their surroundings and have an erratic flight pattern. This is where the word sniper, or sharpshooter, comes from, in addition to the definition of snipe that means "shoot from a hiding place." The figurative sense of "attack someone verbally" followed.
Vocabulary lists containing snipe
Dog Squad
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Small Spaces
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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:
Despite the stress of delivering the “Arirang” on time, the men never bicker or snipe at each other.
From Salon ● Mar. 27, 2026
McGhie then broke from Scotland's half to set up Scotland's third, the forwards trucked it up to the line allowing Brebner-Holden the opportunity to snipe as all good scrum halves do.
From BBC ● Aug. 23, 2025
Vance’s snipe at “cat ladies” wasn’t Swift’s introduction to right-wing weirdness.
From Slate ● Aug. 6, 2025
Birds that will be renamed include those currently called Wilson’s warbler and Wilson’s snipe, both named after the 19th century naturalist Alexander Wilson.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 1, 2023
What Collins didn't know was that Bobby would occasionally snipe at him behind his back.
From "Endgame" by Frank Brady
This has continued well into the Musk era of X-née-Twitter, with the liberal Oates occasionally directing her snipes and barbs at the platform’s white nationalist owner.
From Slate ● Nov. 13, 2025
She even recycled one of her prepared snipes, telling Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.,
From Salon ● Oct. 13, 2025
They picked at this particular South Africa scab with their verbal armoury of salty snipes when a tense chase began.
From BBC ● Jun. 14, 2025
“All is fair where you wear the crown,” snipes Gal Gadot’s evil queen, who wears slinky ballgowns made of obsidian shards that clatter and clank with every step.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 19, 2025
The snipes come now to the brook and water-meadows.
From Wild Life in a Southern County by Jefferies, Richard
Before stepping down as co-CEOs, Overdeck and Siegel rarely appeared together at firm events and frequently sniped at each other in meetings, the Journal previously reported.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 1, 2026
For years Fuentes, who did not respond to our interview requests, sniped at the Republican establishment from the sidelines.
From BBC ● Mar. 13, 2026
Reagan-era conservative alum Hal Furman sniped that it was a shame Dhillon wasn’t in a position to act, so she made a big show of blocking him.
From Salon ● Dec. 29, 2025
As Beethoven is said to have sniped to his benefactor, the Austrian royal Karl Alois, Prince Lichnowsky, “Prince, what you are, you are by circumstance and birth. What I am, I am through myself.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 18, 2024
“You can’t tell me what to do,” Vonetta sniped.
From "Gone Crazy in Alabama" by Rita Williams-Garcia
England have seeped points, looking vulnerable to sniping runs around the edge of the breakdown and to driven mauls.
From BBC ● May 16, 2026
And everyone is constantly sniping; the family’s resting state is exasperation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 9, 2026
Megyn Kelly publicly mocked fellow conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, adding to a pattern of influencer-on-influencer sniping that played out both onstage and online.
From Salon ● Dec. 21, 2025
Not even the digital countdown could generate the sizzling, clanking, sniping roar of chronic, organic anxiety that fueled the first two seasons.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 27, 2025
Harry got so tired of Ron and Hermione sniping at each other over their homework in the common room that he took Sirius’s food up to the Owlery that evening on his own.
From "Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire" by J. K. Rowling
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.
