Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A name given in “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” to an imaginary animal. See blend-word.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun mathematics 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.
  • noun physics A fluke or unrepeatable result or detection in an experiment.
  • noun Snide remarks.
  • verb To express oneself in a snarky fashion
  • verb obsolete To snort.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Compare Low German snarken, North Frisian snarke, Swedish snarka, and English snarl, snort, and snore. Noun sense of “snide remarks” derived from snarky (1906).

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Examples

Comments

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  • See also irony mark.

    September 30, 2008

  • Besides the Alice in Wonderland definition, this word has also come to mean reflexive ridicule or criticism. David Denby wrote a widely reviewed book called "Snark" where it used in this sense.

    July 12, 2009

  • page 39

    The Baltimore Reportory, of Papers on Literary and Other Topics, Volume 1

    1811

    "...What a charming thing it is to see men under good discipline Now gentlemen we come to the revolutions but lord men you have got all in a sort of a snark as I may say how did you get all into such a higglety pigglety "

    July 15, 2013

  • Snark, a portmanteau of snide and remark.

    March 8, 2020

  • LitHub suggests the "contemporary debate over the use of the word snark began in 2003," when in "the inaugural issue of The Believer, Heidi Julavits defined snark as “a scornful, knowing tone frequently employed to mask an actual lack of information.”"

    See here: https://lithub.com/on-one-of-the-most-influential-essays-of-the-21st-century-of-snark-and-smarm/

    August 27, 2023