Sneaking

How to spell sneaking

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce sneaking

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sneaking mean?

1. adjectivePersistent and quietly felt but not openly admitted, as of a suspicion or fondness.
2. verbPresent participle of sneak: moving quietly and secretly to avoid being noticed.

Sneaking in a sentence

• adjective

  She had a sneaking suspicion that the invoice was wrong.

• verb

  The cat was sneaking along the garden wall toward the birds.

• adjective

  He kept a sneaking admiration for his rival's work ethic.

• verb

  He was caught sneaking a glance at his neighbour's exam paper.

Where does sneaking come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word grows from the verb 'sneak', whose origins are slightly murky but most likely trace back to an Old English verb 'snican', meaning 'to creep' or 'to crawl', the same Germanic stock that gave us the slithering 'snake'. The verb surfaced in its modern written form in the late sixteenth century, with Shakespeare among the early users, and from the very start it carried the idea of moving in a furtive, low, hidden way. By adding the ordinary '-ing' ending, English produced both the ongoing action ('sneaking down the hall') and an adjective sense, as in a 'sneaking suspicion', a feeling that creeps up on you quietly rather than arriving openly. Because the base word is just 'sneak', the spelling is reassuringly regular: keep the silent-feeling but fully pronounced 'ea' digraph and simply attach '-ing' with no doubling and no dropped letter. The link to 'snake' is a handy memory aid, since both describe quiet, low movement.

How the word is built

• sneak (to move or creep stealthily)
• -ing (participle / adjective suffix)