Snare

How to spell snare

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce snare

What does snare mean?

1. nounA trap, often a loop of wire or cord, used to catch an animal, or by extension any hidden situation that catches someone out.
2. verbTo catch something in a trap, or to capture a person or thing by cunning.
3. nounA drum fitted with taut strands of wire across its lower head, giving a sharp rattling sound.

Snare in a sentence

• noun

  The gamekeeper set a wire snare along the rabbit run.

• verb

  The poachers tried to snare pheasants on the estate.

• noun

  The drummer tightened the snare before the recording session.

• noun

  The contract had a hidden snare buried in the small print.

• verb

  Investigators hoped to snare the fraudster with falsified records.

• noun

  A crisp snare kept the marching band in time.

Where does snare come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

Snare comes from the Old Norse word snara, meaning a noose or a loop of cord used to trap an animal, and it is closely related to an Old English form sneare with the same sense. The underlying Germanic idea was of something twisted or wound, since the root is linked to words for spinning and plaiting cord, which is exactly what an early trap was made from. It entered English firmly during the Viking-influenced period and kept its literal meaning of a wire or cord loop for catching birds and small game. From there it broadened into the familiar figurative sense of any hidden trap that catches a person unawares. The drumming sense arrived much later, naming the tight strands of gut or wire stretched across the bottom of a drum, because those taut cords resemble the strings of an old snare. The spelling is mercifully phonetic, which is why the main trap for writers is simply remembering it ends in plain -are rather than anything fancier.

How the word is built

• snare (from Old Norse snara: noose, loop of cord), a single Germanic root word with no prefix or suffix