Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
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name
A fictional animal in Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
name
A ketch built by Jack London named after Lewis Carroll's poem The Hunting of the Snark
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
an attitude or expression of mocking irreverence and sarcasm.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: sarcasm, snideness
Antonyms: none provided
noun
The fictional creature of Lewis Carroll's poem, used allusively to refer to fruitless quest or search.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: literary
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
A graph in which every node has three branches, and the edges cannot be coloured in fewer than four colours without two edges of the same colour meeting at a point.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Topics: mathematics, sciences
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
A fluke or unrepeatable result or detection in an experiment.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: particle
Topics: natural-sciences, physical-sciences, physics
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Acronym of succinct non-interactive argument of knowledge.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: abbreviation, acronym, alt-of
Topics: computing, cryptography, engineering, mathematics, natural-sciences, physical-sciences, sciences
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
To express oneself in a snarky fashion.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
To snort.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Coined by Lewis Carroll as a nonce word in The Hunting of the Snark (1874). According to Beatrice Hatch, Carroll created this word as a blend of snail + shark.
Noun sense “snide remark” as back-formation from snarky (1906), from obsolete snark (“to snore, snort”, verb) (1866), from Middle English *snarken (“to snore”), from Proto-West Germanic *snarkōn, equivalent to snore + -k. Compare Low German snarken, North Frisian snarke, Swedish snarka, German schnarchen, and English snort and snore. Of Germanic origin, but ultimately onomatopoeic.
From Snark, coined by Lewis Carroll as a nonce word in The Hunting of the Snark (1874), about the quest for an elusive creature. In sense of “a type of mathematical graph”, named as such in 1976 by Martin Gardner for their elusiveness.
Across languages
4 source translations are retained for this English entry.
