Etymology

snark

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Today it means: an attitude or expression of mocking irreverence and sarcasm. Full definition →

Middle English *snarken ← Proto-West Germanic *snarkōn
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snark · noun, verb1

  1. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*snarkōn
  2. Middle English · inherited from*snarken“to snore”
  3. English todaysnark

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.

snark · noun2

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.

Snark · proper noun3

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.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.