Sneak

How to spell sneak

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce sneak

What does sneak mean?

1. verbTo move quietly and secretly so as not to be noticed, or to do something in a furtive way.
2. nounA person who behaves furtively or who secretly informs on others, especially in British schoolyard usage.

Sneak in a sentence

• verb

  He tried to sneak past the sleeping dog without waking it.

• noun

  The other pupils branded him a sneak for reporting the broken window.

• verb

  She would sneak a quick glance at her phone during the meeting.

• noun

  Nobody trusts a sneak who repeats private conversations to the boss.

Where does sneak come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Sneak surfaces in English in the late 1500s, and its earlier history is genuinely murky. The best guess connects it to the Old English verb snican, meaning 'to creep' or 'to crawl', which described the slow, low movement of a creature staying out of sight. That same family of words gave us 'snake', the creeping animal, so the idea of moving close to the ground and unseen runs right through the group. Over time the word picked up its modern flavour of doing something secretly and a little dishonestly, rather than just moving slowly. In British school slang it also hardened into a noun for a tell-tale, someone who informs on others. The spelling is mercifully phonetic; the only real trap is remembering the 'ea' vowel team rather than a doubled 'ee'.

How the word is built

• sneak (single root, probably from Old English snican: to creep or crawl)