snippet
Americannoun
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snippets
plural
-
a small piece snipped off; a small bit, scrap, or fragment.
an anthology of snippets.
-
Informal. a small or insignificant person.
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of snippet
Explanation
A snippet is a tiny piece. You might only have time to read a snippet of "Moby Dick" before your early English class — just enough to know it's a book about a whale. While a snippet can be a literal fragment of something, like a snippet of hair clipped off the end of your dog's tail, the word is often used to talk about less physical bits. You may get a snippet of information by watching TV news with the sound turned off, or end your writing workshop with just a snippet of an idea for your screenplay. It comes from snip, with its Low German root snippen, "to snip or shred."
Vocabulary lists containing snippet
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
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The Breadwinner
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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:
In Covid, the letter being delivered was a snippet of genetic code from the Covid virus.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
The mRNA vaccine and the Oxford vaccine both deliver a snippet of genetic code into the body.
From BBC ● Jun. 1, 2026
“This has been in many respects a trial by snippet and insinuation,” Marriott said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 15, 2026
In October, the singer-songwriter Zach Bryan teased a snippet of a new song on Instagram.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 10, 2026
Hadn’t I overheard that in a snippet of conversation back at Mahipar?
From "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini
It’s a collection of songs pieced together from perfect-seeming snippets heard while passing open doors.
From Salon ● Aug. 21, 2026
Andrew Wilson’s “I Wanna Be Loved by You,” with a seductive cover image of the actress, offers a surprisingly sensible life history in quickfire snippets of information, or “100 Takes.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026
We’re forced to hear endless snippets of it, too, although the full lyrics are saved for the end when we discover that one of songwriters clumsily shoved in the word “albatross.”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 28, 2026
AI Overviews have now replaced snippets or lists of links at the top of Google search results, with similar experiments appearing on social platforms like TikTok and X.
From BBC ● May 18, 2026
Or from snippets of conversation that I caught between him and Mother and Mamaji and others.
From "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
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.
