Meanings
alternative snook
- South AfricaAn edible fish, Thyrsites atun, native to South African (Cape), South American and Australian waters, often smoked or salted.
Snoek need not be scaled. The scales are very fine and usually slip off during handling.
2005, Alicia Wilkinson, Complete South African Fish & Seafood Cookbook, page 582 more examples
2003, Oceanographic Literature Review, Volume 50, Issues 1-2600, page 348, Snoek (Thyrsites atun) is a valuable commercial species and an important predator of small pelagic fishes in the Benguela ecosystem. The South African population attains 50% sexual maturity at a fork length of ca.73.0 cm (3 years). Spawning occurs offshore during winter-spring, along the shelf break (150-400 m) of the western Agulhas Bank and the South African west coast
My friend Jeffrey Jowell, who grew up in Cape Town, has lived away from South Africa for more than forty years, yearning for snoek the entire time. He thinks about fried snoek and grilled snoek and dried snoek and snoek made into pâté. He may miss smoked snoek most of all. Any mention of snoek—a long, bony fish that looks like a second cousin of a barracuda—triggers memories in Jeffrey of his childhood.
2004, Calvin Trillin, The strange attraction of snoek: The New Yorker, volume 80, page lxxxvi - South AfricaNatalThe queen mackerel, Scomberomorus lineolatus.
- South AfricaAny of several species of barracuda.
Synonyms & antonyms
nouna large marine food fish common on the coasts of Australia, New Zealand, and southern Africa
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Old Dutch*snuoc
- Middle Dutchsnoec
- Dutchsnoek
- Afrikaanssnoek
- Englishsnoek
Borrowed from Afrikaans snoek, from Dutch snoek, from Middle Dutch snoec, from Old Dutch *snuoc. Some senses come from or are influenced by Dutch zeesnoek (“barracuda”, literally “sea pike”), a word that Van Riebeeck applied to the Thyrsites atun. Doublet of snook and possibly a distant doublet of snake.
More words from Afrikaans, Dutch, Middle Dutch
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
snoek. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/snoek
“snoek.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/snoek. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “snoek,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/snoek.
Source: snoek on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.