Snapping

How to spell snapping

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce snapping

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does snapping mean?

1. verbBreaking with a sharp sound, biting or grabbing suddenly, taking a photograph, or speaking in a curt irritable way.

Snapping in a sentence

• The dog kept snapping at the postman through the gate.

• She heard a branch snapping under the weight of the snow.

Where does snapping come from?

Language of origin: Dutch

The base verb 'snap' came into English in the late 1400s from Dutch or Low German 'snappen', meaning 'to seize, bite, or grasp suddenly'. That word imitated the sharp sound of jaws closing or teeth catching, so it began life as an echo of a quick biting action. From the literal idea of an animal snapping its jaws, English speakers extended the sense to anything that breaks with a sudden sharp sound, to quick irritable speech, and eventually to the rapid click of a camera shutter. The present participle 'snapping' simply adds the '-ing' ending, and because the word ends in a single vowel followed by a single consonant in a stressed syllable, that final 'p' is doubled before the suffix. This doubling rule, the same one that turns 'tap' into 'tapping' and 'stop' into 'stopping', is exactly the spot where writers sometimes slip and leave only one 'p'.

How the word is built

• snap (root, to seize or break suddenly)
• -ing (present participle suffix); the final consonant doubles to keep the short 'a' sound, giving 'snapping' rather than 'snaping'