sneer

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English

Etymology

Probably akin to Middle High German snerren (“to chatter; gossip”).

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /snɪə̯/
  • (US) IPA(key): /snɪɚ̯/
  • Audio (UK)(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)

Verb

sneer (third-person singular simple present sneers, present participle sneering, simple past and past participle sneered)

  1. (intransitive) To raise a corner of the upper lip slightly, especially in scorn.
    • 1890, Henry Kingsley, Old Margaret: And Other Stories, page 393:
      So General Oakfield's friends taunted him with having been beaten, and Blackeston's friends sneered at him for not having called the general out. Blackeston, a studious and sensitive man, felt the taunts of his friends as only a student can.
  2. (transitive) To utter with a grimace or contemptuous expression; to say sneeringly.
    to sneer fulsome lies at a person
    • 1913, Land of Sunshine, page 116:
      There was a quick scuffle within the cabin. "Leave me alone, I say, and git!" cried the cook. "Can't I be friendly without you hollerin?" sneered the miner. "You wouldn't have been 'lowed to stay round here if it hadn't been for me."

Translations

Noun

sneer (plural sneers)

  1. A facial expression where one slightly raises one corner of the upper lip, generally indicating scorn.
    • 1835, Charlotte Brontë, chapter XXX, in Villette‎:
      He supposed then (with a sneer—M. Paul could sneer supremely, curling his lip, opening his nostrils, contracting his eyelids)—he supposed there was but one form of appeal to which I would listen [...]
  2. A display of contempt; scorn.
    • 1963, C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins, 2nd Revised edition, page 24:
      And wordy attacks against slavery drew sneers from observers which were not altogether undeserved. The authors were compared to doctors who offered to a patient nothing more than invectives against the disease which consumed him.
    • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 8, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
      It was a casual sneer, obviously one of a long line. There was hatred behind it, but of a quiet, chronic type, nothing new or unduly virulent, and he was taken aback by the flicker of amazed incredulity that passed over the younger man's ravaged face.
    • 2019 July 24, David Austin Walsh, “Flirting With Fascism”, in Jewish Currents‎:
      During [Tucker] Carlson’s keynote, he wedged sneers at his critics for crying “racist!” in between racist remarks about [Ilhan] Omar, jeremiads against the media (“I know there’s a bunch of reporters here, so . . . screw you”), and an attack on Elizabeth Warren and her donors (“She’s a tragedy, because she’s now obsessed with racism, which is why the finance world supports her”)—all to gleeful applause.

Derived terms

Translations

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Dutch

Pronunciation

Noun

sneer m (plural sneren or sneers, diminutive sneertje n)

  1. snide remark
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