snipe
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /snaɪp/
rhymes: -aɪp
Forms: form: snipes
form: sniping
form: sniped
form: sniped
Etymology: From Middle English snipe, snype (a type of bird), from Old Norse snípa, as in mýrisnípa (“moor snipe”). Akin to Norwegian snipe.
The verb originated in the 1770s among soldiers in British India where a hunter skilled enough to kill the elusive snipe was dubbed a "sniper". The term sniper was first attested in 1824 in the sense of the word "sharpshooter".
Senses: examples: text: The pleasures of Bay bird shooting should not be spoken of in the same sentence with cocking or sniping.
ref: 1883, Charles Hallock, The Sportsman's Gazetteer and General Guide: The Game Animals, Bird and Fishes of North America; Their Habits and Various Methods of Capture, revised edition:
glosses: To hunt snipe.
glosses: To shoot at individuals from a concealed place.
glosses: To shoot with a sniper rifle.
examples: text: I am the type who is liable to snipe you
With two seconds left to go, whoa.
ref: 2003, "Weird Al" Yankovic, eBay (song)
text: Tip: Adding a few cents to your maximum bid is particularly effective when you're sniping. (..) Last-second bidding is called sniping, and 15 percent of all eBay auctions are won within the last minute.
ref: 2005, Nancy Conner, eBay: The Missing Manual: The Missing Manual, O'Reilly Media, Inc., →ISBN, page 126:
text: Sniping is the process of placing bids in the closing minutes or seconds of an auction. Snipers do this to avoid bidding wars that escalate the bids to more than they want to pay.
ref: 2007, Entrepreneur Press, Start Your Own Business on eBay: Your Step-By-Step Guide to Success, Entrepreneur Press, →ISBN, page 64:
text: The successful sniper makes one bid only—and makes it count. Sniping happens on eBay because the end time of each auction is rigidly enforced. If you know that an auction ends at 12:01:30, you can time your snipe to hit at 12:01:29, leaving no time for any other bidders to trump your bid.
ref: 2008, Michael Miller, Absolute Beginner's Guide to EBay, Que Publishing, →ISBN, page 68:
glosses: To watch a timed online auction and place a winning bid against (the current high bidder) at the last possible moment.
glosses: To nose (a log) to make it drag or slip easily in skidding.
topics: hobbies
ice-hockey
lifestyle
skating
sports
glosses: To score a goal.
examples: text: The breakthrough duly arrived after 35 minutes, an absolute beauty of a team goal scored by Lozano. First Khedira was robbed deep in the Mexico half. Hernández sniped away from Jérôme Boateng and Mats Hummels. A flurry of skimmed passes across the wide-open spaces of the Germany defence left Lozano in space in the area. With the stadium howling for him to shoot he cut inside Özil, who had tracked back to right-back, and buried the ball past Neuer.
ref: 2018 June 17, Barney Ronay, “Mexico’s Hirving Lozano stuns world champions Germany for brilliant win”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 05 Aug 2019:
glosses: To move the ball quickly in a different direction.
Derived terms: sniper
stream snipe
Related terms: snipe hunt