Etymology

snide

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Today it means: Disparaging or derisive in an insinuative way. Full definition →

Middle English snythand
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The story

  1. Middle English · inherited fromsnythand“piercing (the heart), cold, biting”
  2. English todaysnide

Probably from a dialectal variant of snithe (“sharp, cutting, cold”). See snithe (adjective). Alternatively, possibly a metathetic corruption of Middle English snythand (“piercing (the heart), cold, biting”, literally and figuratively). More at snithe (verb). Compare typologically cutting, Russian ко́лкий (kólkij) (akin to коло́ть (kolótʹ)).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.