Snapshot

How to spell snapshot

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce snapshot

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does snapshot mean?

1. nounA casual, quickly taken photograph.
2. nounA brief summary or impression of something at a particular moment in time.

Snapshot in a sentence

• She kept a faded snapshot of her parents in her wallet.

• The survey offers a snapshot of consumer spending over one weekend.

• He took a quick snapshot of the menu before they left the cafe.

• The report gives a useful snapshot of the company's finances at year end.

Where does snapshot come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word began life in hunting, where a 'snap shot' meant a shot fired quickly and instinctively at a moving target without taking careful aim, recorded in English in the early 1800s. The first element, snap, is a Germanic word imitating a quick bite or sudden movement, related to Dutch snappen 'to seize or snatch'; the second, shot, is the native Old English scot, the act of shooting a missile. When photography became popular in the late 1800s, the sportsman's term was borrowed for a casual, hurriedly taken picture, capturing a moment without elaborate setup. From there the meaning widened again into the modern figurative sense of a brief, instantaneous impression of something at a single point in time. Because it is simply two familiar everyday words joined together, the spelling holds no real surprises once you see the two halves.

How the word is built

• snap (a quick, sudden action)
• shot (an act of shooting or, later, taking a photograph)