different between speck vs snip

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sp?k/
• Homophone: spec
• Rhymes: -?k

Etymology 1

From Middle English spekke, from Old English specca (“small spot, stain”). Cognate with Low German spaken (“to spot with wet”).

Noun

speck (plural specks)

1. A tiny spot, especially of dirt etc.
2. A very small thing; a particle; a whit.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:modicum

   • a. 1864, Walter Savage Landor, quoted in 1971, Ernest Dilworth, Walter Savage Landor, Twayne Publishers, page 88,

     Onward, and many bright specks bubble up along the blue Aegean; islands, every one of which, if the songs and stories of the pilots are true, is the monument of a greater man than I am.
3. (zoology) A small etheostomoid fish, Etheostoma stigmaeum, common in the eastern United States.

Translations

Verb

speck (third-person singular simple present specks, present participle specking, simple past and past participle specked)

1. (transitive) To mark with specks; to speckle.

   paper specked by impurities in the water used in its manufacture

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, 1991, Stephen Orgel, Jonathan Goldberg (editors), The Major Works, 2003, paperback, page 534,

     Each flower of slender stalk, whose head though gay / Carnation, purple, azure, or specked with gold, / Hung drooping unsustained,

Etymology 2

From earlier specke, spycke (probably reinforced by Dutch spek, German Speck), from Middle English spik, spyk, spike, spich, from Old English spic (“bacon; lard; fat”), from Proto-Germanic *spikk?, *spik? (“bacon”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Späk, Dutch spek, German Speck, Icelandic spik.

Noun

speck (uncountable)

1. Fat; lard; fat meat.
2. (uncountable) A juniper-flavoured ham originally from Tyrol.
3. The blubber of whales or other marine mammals.
4. The fat of the hippopotamus.

Translations

Anagrams

• pecks

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from German Speck, from Middle High German spec, from Old High German spek, from Proto-Germanic *spik? (“bacon”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?sp?k/
• Hyphenation: spèck

Noun

speck m (invariable)

1. speck (type of ham)

   Hypernym: salume

Further reading

• Speck Alto Adige on the Italian Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^it

References

• speck in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

English

Etymology

From Dutch snippen (“to snip; shred”) or Low German snippen (“to snip; shred”), of imitative origin.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sn?p/
• Homophone: SNP
• Rhymes: -?p

Verb

snip (third-person singular simple present snips, present participle snipping, simple past and past participle snipped)

1. To cut with short sharp actions, as with scissors.

2. To reduce the price of a product, to create a snip.
3. To break off; to snatch away.

   • The captain seldom ordered anything out of the ship's stores […] but I snipt […] some of it for my own share.

4. (informal) To circumcise.
   • 2001, David Cohen, The Father's Book: Being a Good Dad in the 21st Century, John WIley & Sons Ltd (2001), ?ISBN, page 72:

     Circumcised fathers face a special problem. Do you want your son's willy to be that radically different from your own? So, parents should perhaps not be put off. Be good to your son's future lovers and have him snipped.

   • 2008, Ilene Schneider, Talk Dirty Yiddish: Beyond Drek: The Curses, Slang, and Street Lingo You Need to Know When You Speak Yiddish, Adams Media (2008), ?ISBN, page 150:

     His children, however, were not snipped, possibly because Princess Diana was opposed to the practice, which is out of fashion in England.

   • 2012, Tom Hickman, God's Doodle: The Life and Times of the Penis, Square Peg (2012), ?ISBN, page 144:

     By the outbreak of the First World War such claims had diminished and the medical profession touted circumcision as being 'hygienic' — fathers were not only encouraged to have their newborn sons snipped, but to belatedly enjoy the benefits themselves.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:snip.
5. (Internet) To remove the irrelevant parts of quotations in the reply message.

Translations

Noun

snip (plural snips)

1. The act of snipping; cutting a small amount off of something.
2. A single cut with scissors, clippers, or similar tool.
3. Something acquired for a low price; a bargain.

   That wholesale lot on eBay was a snip at $10

4. A small amount of something; a pinch.
5. (definite, the snip, euphemistic) A vasectomy.
6. A small or weak person, especially a young one.
   • 2010, Ellen Renner, Castle of Shadows, Hachette UK, 2010 ?ISBN.

     'Might as well come out now, you little snip, from wherever you be hiding!'

7. (dated) An impertinent or mischievous person.
   • 1835, William Hamilton Maxwell, My Life (page 283)

     Nor was the lady's establishment more fortunate in gaining the regard of the household. The maid was a verjuiced spinster, too old to love herself, and too ill-natured to look on. The footman was a regular snip […]

8. (obsolete) A share or portion; a snack.
   • 1680, Roger L'Estrange, The Free-Born Subject, Or, the Englishmans Birthright Asserted Against All Tyrannical Vsvrpations Either in Church or State

     His Third Query is a Frank Proposal, without any more ado, of taking all the Church Lands into the Crown; and Courteously he offers the Poor Cavaliers a Snip in the Booty

9. (obsolete, slang) A tailor.

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

   • Template:RQ:Kingsley Alton

Translations

Derived terms

• snipper
• snippy

References

Anagrams

• Insp, NIPs, NPIs, Nips, PINs, PSNI, nips, pins, spin

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch snippe.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sn?p/
• Hyphenation: snip
• Rhymes: -?p

Noun

snip f (plural snippen, diminutive snipje n)

1. A snipe or woodcock, thin-beaked bird of the genera Gallinago, Scolopax, Lymnocryptes, Limnodromus and Coenocorypha.
2. (informal, Netherlands) A 100 guilders banknote.

Derived terms

• houtsnip
• poelsnip
• snipverkouden
• watersnip

Descendants

• Afrikaans: snip
• ? Sranan Tongo: snepi