Snark
Pronunciation
- enPR: snärk, IPA: /snÉ‘Ë(r)k/
- Rhymes: -É‘Ë(r)k
Origin 1
Compare Low German snarken, North Frisian snarke, Swedish snarka,
Online Etymology Dictionary|snarky
and English snarl, snort, and snore. Noun sense of “snide remarks†derived from snarky (1906), from snark (v.) "to snort" (1866) by onomatopoiea.
Synonyms
- (snide comments) sarcasm
Related terms
Verb
Derived terms
Origin 2
From Snark, coined by Lewis Carroll as a nonce word in 1874 The Hunting of the Snark, about the quest for an elusive creature. In sense of “a type of mathematical graphâ€, named as such in 1976 by Martin Gardner for their elusiveness.
Martin Gardner, Mathematical Games, Scientific American, issue 234, volume 4, pp. 126–130, 1976.
Noun
snark
(plural snarks)- (mathematics) A graph in which every node has three branches, and the edges cannot be coloured in fewer than four colours without two edges of the same colour meeting at a point.
- (particle) A fluke or unrepeatable result or detection in an experiment.Cabrera's Valentine's Day monopole detection or some extremely energetic cosmic rays could be examples of snarks.