different between check vs snag

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: ch?k, IPA^(key): /t???k/
• Rhymes: -?k
• Homophones: cheque, Czech

Etymology 1

From Middle English chek, chekke, borrowed from Old French eschek, eschec, eschac, from Medieval Latin scaccus, borrowed from Arabic ????? (š?h, “king or check at chess, shah”), borrowed from Persian ???? (šâh, “king”), from Middle Persian ????????????????? (mlk? /š?h/), from Old Persian ???? (XŠ /xš?ya?iya/, “king”), from Proto-Indo-Iranian *kšáyati (“he rules, he has power over”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *tek- (“to gain power over, gain control over”).

All English senses developed from the chess sense. Compare Saterland Frisian Schak, Schach, Dutch schaak, German Schach, Danish skak, Swedish schack, Icelandic skák, French échec, Italian scacco. See chess and shah (“king of Persia or Iran”).

Noun

check (plural checks)

1. (chess) A situation in which the king is directly threatened by an opposing piece. [from 14th c.]
2. An inspection or examination.

3. A control; a limit or stop.
4. (US) A mark (especially a checkmark: ?) used as an indicator.

   Synonyms: (UK) tick, checkmark

   • 1980, Stephen King, The Mist

     Norton had made a neat, lawyerly check beside each of the items he and Billy had picked up—half a dozen or so, including the milk and a six-pack of Coke.

5. (US) An order to a bank to pay money to a named person or entity.

   Synonym: (UK, Canada) cheque

6. (US) A bill, particularly in a restaurant.

   Synonyms: bill, (Canada) cheque

7. (contact sports) A maneuver performed by a player to take another player out of the play.

8. A token used instead of cash in gaming machines, or in gambling generally.
   • 1963, American law reports annotated: second series, volume 89

     […] the statute prohibits a machine which dispenses checks or tokens for replay […]

9. A lengthwise separation through the growth rings in wood.
10. A mark, certificate, or token by which errors may be prevented, or a thing or person may be identified.

11. (falconry) The forsaking by a hawk of its proper game to follow other birds. [from 15th c.]
12. A small chink or crack.

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Translations

References

• check on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Etymology 2

From Middle English chekken, partly from Old French eschequier and partly from the noun (see above).

Verb

check (third-person singular simple present checks, present participle checking, simple past and past participle checked)

1. To inspect; to examine.

2. To verify the accuracy of a text or translation, usually making some corrections (proofread) or many (copyedit).
3. (US, often used with "off") To mark items on a list (with a checkmark or by crossing them out) that have been chosen for keeping or removal or that have been dealt with (for example, completed or verified as correct or satisfactory).

   Synonyms: check off, (UK) tick, (UK) tick off, cross off, strike off

   Antonym: uncheck

4. To control, limit, or halt.

   Synonyms: curtail, restrain; see also Thesaurus:curb

   • c. 1775–1780, Edmund Burke, letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol

     so many clogs to check and retard the headlong course of violence and oppression

   • 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses Chapter 13

     She was about to retort but something checked the words on her tongue.

5. To verify or compare with a source of information.

6. To leave in safekeeping.

7. To leave with a shipping agent for shipping.

8. (street basketball) To pass or bounce the ball to an opponent from behind the three-point line and have the opponent pass or bounce it back to start play.

9. (sports) To disrupt another player with the stick or body to obtain possession of the ball or puck.

   Synonyms: tackle, trap, attack

10. (poker) To remain in a hand without betting. Only legal if no one has yet bet.

11. (chess) To make a move which puts an adversary's king in check; to put in check.
12. To chide, rebuke, or reprove.
13. (nautical) To slack or ease off, as a brace which is too stiffly extended.
14. To crack or gape open, as wood in drying; or to crack in small checks, as varnish, paint, etc.
15. To make checks or chinks in; to cause to crack.

16. To make a stop; to pause; with at.

    • The mind, once jaded by an attempt above its power, either is disabled for the future, or else checks at any vigorous undertaking ever after.

17. (obsolete) To clash or interfere.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Francis Bacon to this entry?)

18. To act as a curb or restraint.
    • 1677, John Dryden, All for Love

      It [his presence] checks too strong upon me.

19. (falconry) To turn, when in pursuit of proper game, and fly after other birds.

Derived terms

• See below

Descendants

• ? Gulf Arabic: ???? (??yy?k)
• ? Hijazi Arabic: ??????? (šayyak)
• ? Finnish: tsekata
• ? German: checken
• ? Portuguese: checar
• ? Russian: ??????? (?ékat?)
• ? Russian: ???????? (?éknut?)
• ? Russian: ?????????? (pro?ékat?)
• ? Spanish: chequear

Translations

Derived terms

Related terms

Etymology 3

By shortening from chequer, from Old French eschequier (“chessboard”), from Medieval Latin scaccarium, ultimately from the same Persian root as above.

Noun

check (plural checks)

1. (textiles, usually pluralized) A pattern made up of a grid of squares of alternating colors; a checkered pattern.
   • 1819, Charles Mowry, in the Downington Pennsylvania American Republican, quoted in Herbery Wisbey, Pioneer Prophetess: Jemima Wilkinson, the Publick Universal Friend:

     One of her female followers, had made a very elegant piece of check. The Friend, being at her house, on a visit, the lady shewed the check to her, and as evidence of devotion to her leader, proposed presenting her with a pattern off the piece for her own use.

2. Any fabric woven with such a pattern.

Translations

Verb

check (third-person singular simple present checks, present participle checking, simple past and past participle checked)

1. (transitive) To mark with a check pattern.

Adjective

check (not comparable)

1. (heraldry) Divided into small squares by transverse, perpendicular, and horizontal lines.

   Synonym: chequy

References

• Michael Quinion (2004) , “Cheque”, in Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds: Ingenious Tales of Words and Their Origins, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books in association with Penguin Books, ?ISBN
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “check”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Chinese

Etymology

Borrowed from English check.

Pronunciation

Verb

check

1. (Cantonese) to check

Synonyms

• ????? (ji?nchá)

Danish

Etymology

From English cheque, check, from Old French eschek (“check (in chess)”), via Medieval Latin scaccus and Arabic ????? (š?h) from Persian ???? (šâh, “king”) (cf. also Danish skak).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?????]

Noun

check c

1. cheque

Inflection

Dutch

Pronunciation

Verb

check

1. first-person singular present indicative of checken
2. imperative of checken

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t??k/

Noun

check m (plural checks)

1. (slang) fist bump

Spanish

Noun

check m (plural checks)

1. check (mark)

Swedish

Etymology

From English check

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??k?/
• Homophones: käck, tjeck

Noun

check c

1. cheque, check

Declension

References

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?snæ?/
• Rhymes: -æ?

Etymology 1

Of North Germanic origin, ultimately from Old Norse snagi (“clothes peg”), perhaps ultimately from a derivative of Proto-Germanic *snakk-, *sn?gg, variations of *snakan? (“to crawl, creep, wind about”).

Compare Norwegian snag, snage (“protrusion; projecting point”), Icelandic snagi (“peg”). Also see Dutch snoek (“pike”).

Noun

snag (plural snags)

1. A stump or base of a branch that has been lopped off; a short branch, or a sharp or rough branch.

   Synonyms: knot, protuberance

   • The coat of arms / Now on a naked snag in triumph borne.

2. A dead tree that remains standing.
3. A tree, or a branch of a tree, fixed in the bottom of a river or other navigable water, and rising nearly or quite to the surface, by which boats are sometimes pierced and sunk.
4. (by extension) Any sharp protuberant part of an object, which may catch, scratch, or tear other objects brought into contact with it.
5. A tooth projecting beyond the others; a broken or decayed tooth.

   • To see our women's teeth look white,
     And ev'ry saucy ill - bred fellow
     Sneers at a mouth profoundly yellow.
     In China none hold women sweet,
     Except their snags are black as jet# (figuratively) A problem or difficulty with something.

   Synonym: hitch
6. A pulled thread or yarn, as in cloth.
7. One of the secondary branches of an antler.

   Synonyms: tine, point

Derived terms

• snaggy
• snaglike

Translations

Verb

snag (third-person singular simple present snags, present participle snagging, simple past and past participle snagged)

1. To catch or tear (e.g. fabric) upon a rough surface or projection.

2. To damage or sink (a vessel) by collision; said of a tree or branch fixed to the bottom of a navigable body of water and partially submerged or rising to just beneath the surface.

3. (fishing) To fish by means of dragging a large hook or hooks on a line, intending to impale the body (rather than the mouth) of the target.

4. (slang, transitive) To obtain or pick up.
   • 2017, Off Track Planet's Travel Guide for the Young, Sexy, and Broke

     Tickets are cheaper the younger you are—snag a youth ticket (if you're twenty-five or under) for a 35 percent discount. If both you and your travel partner are twenty-six or older, the Small Group Saver will knock off 15 percent.

5. (Britain, dialect) To cut the snags or branches from, as the stem of a tree; to hew roughly.
   • 1846, Sir Richard Levinge, "Echoes from the Backwoods", in The New Monthly Volume 76

     When felled and snagged, one end of the tree is placed upon a small sledge, and dragged out of the bush by oxen

Translations

Etymology 2

The Australian National Dictionary Centre suggests that snag as slang for "sausage" most likely derives from the earlier British slang for "light meal", although it makes no comment on how it came to be specifically applied to sausages.Meanings and origins of Australian words and idioms The word's use in football slang originates as a shortening of "sausage roll", rhyming slang for "goal", to sausage, and hence, by synonymy, snag.

Noun

snag (plural snags)

1. (Britain, dialect, obsolete) A light meal.
2. (Australia, informal, colloquial) A sausage. [From 1937.]

   Synonyms: (UK) banger, (NZ) snarler

   • 2005, Peter Docker, Someone Else?s Country, 2010, ReadHowYouWant, page 116,

     I fire up the barbie and start cooking snags.

   • 2007, Jim Ford, Don't Worry, Be Happy: Beijing to Bombay with a Backpack, page 196,

     ‘You can get the chooks and snags from the fridge if you want,’ he replied.

     I smiled, remembering my bewilderment upon receiving exactly the same command at my very first barbecue back in Sydney a month after I?d first arrived.

   • 2010, Fiona Wallace, Sense and Celebrity, page 25,

     ‘Hungry? We?ve got plenty of roo,’ one of the men said as she walked up. He pointed with his spatula, ‘and pig snags, cow snags, beef and chicken.’

3. (Australian rules football, slang) A goal.
   • 2003, Greg Baum, "Silver anniversary of a goal achieved", The Age

     "It just kept coming down and I just kept putting them through the middle," he said. "I got an opportunity, and I kicked a few snags."

Translations

See also

• Appendix:Australian rhyming slang
• Appendix:Australian rules football slang

Etymology 3

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

snag (plural snags)

1. A misnaged, an opponent to Chassidic Judaism (more likely modern, for cultural reasons).

References

Anagrams

• AGNs, ANGs, GANs, GNAs, NSAG, gans, nags, sang

Irish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /s?n??a?/

Etymology 1

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

snag m (genitive singular snaga, nominative plural snaganna)

1. a catch (hesitation in voice), gasp, sob
2. a lull (period of rest)

Declension

Derived terms

• snagcheol (“jazz”)

Etymology 2

Probably related to Scottish Gaelic snag (“sharp knock”), also "wood-pecker."

Noun

snag m (genitive singular snaga, nominative plural snaganna)

1. a treecreeper (bird of the family Certhiidae)

   Synonym: beangán

2. goby (fish)

   Synonym: mac siobháin

Declension

Derived terms

Mutation

Further reading

• "snag" in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, An Gúm, 1977, by Niall Ó Dónaill.
• Entries containing “snag” in English-Irish Dictionary, An Gúm, 1959, by Tomás de Bhaldraithe.
• Entries containing “snag” in New English-Irish Dictionary by Foras na Gaeilge.

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

Related to snaidh (“hew, chip”), from Proto-Celtic *sknad, from Proto-Indo-European *k(?)end- or *k(?)enHd(?)-, see also Sanskrit ????? (kh?dati, “to chew, to bite”) and Persian ??????? (xâyidan, “to chew”).

Noun

snag f (genitive singular snaige, plural snagan)

1. sharp knock (sound)

Derived terms

• snagan-daraich

Mutation

References