Snoop

How to spell snoop

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce snoop

What does snoop mean?

1. verbTo look into or investigate someone's private affairs in a secretive, prying way.
2. nounA person who pries into the private affairs of others; a nosy investigator.

Snoop in a sentence

• verb

  He likes to snoop through his coworkers' desks when the office is empty.

• noun

  The neighbours considered him a tiresome snoop who watched everyone's comings and goings.

• verb

  She warned the children not to snoop around in her bedroom drawers.

• noun

  A hired snoop followed the suspect for a week before reporting back.

Where does snoop come from?

Language of origin: Dutch

Snoop entered American English in the first half of the 1800s, borrowed directly from the Dutch verb snoepen, which meant to eat sweets, cakes, or other treats on the sly, especially food one was not supposed to have. The image behind the Dutch word was of someone sneaking a forbidden nibble, doing something quietly and secretly to avoid being caught. American English, which absorbed many Dutch words from early settlers in New York, took the sneaking sense and broadened it from stolen snacks to prying into other people's affairs. By the late 1800s snoop was firmly established as both a verb for nosing about and a noun for the busybody who does it. The single, simple double 'o' spelling is the only real thing to watch, since the sound could tempt a writer toward other spellings.

How the word is built

• snoop (from Dutch snoepen: to eat treats secretly, hence to do something on the sly)