Word
Of
The
Day
snark
snark \SNAHRK\
noun
Snark is an informal word that refers to an attitude or expression of mocking irreverence and sarcasm.
// The stand-up comedian’s set was full of
snark about current events, which had the audience rolling in the aisles.
See the entry >
Examples:
“With
snark and whimsy, [Zelda] Williams and the screenwriter Diablo Cody … put a playfully macabre spin on the Frankenstein legend that doubles as a subversive exploration of the universal desire to be loved and understood.” — Erik Piepenburg,
The New York Times, 16 Aug. 2024
Did you know?
Credit for
snark is often given to
Lewis Carroll, on the basis of his having written a poem with this word in the title, back in the 1870s. The modern
snark, however, is a
back-formation (“a word formed by subtraction of a real or supposed affix from an already existing longer word”), a class of words that includes
burgle and
back-stab. It comes from taking the longer word
snarky and subtracting the -
y.
Snarky emerged in English around the turn of the 20th century, initially with the meaning of “snappish, crotchety,” and then later took on the sense of “sarcastic, impertinent, or irreverent in tone or manner.” The noun
snark is a much more recent addition to the language, arising in the 1990s. It was preceded by the verb
snark, “to make an irreverent or sarcastic comment, to say something snarky,” which dates to the late 1980s.