Reconstruction:Old English/snæcan

This Old English entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Old English

Etymology

Either from Proto-West Germanic *snākijan, from *snākō (“person or thing that crawls, creeps”) +‎ *-jan, or *snaikijan, causative to *snīkan (“to crawl, creep”), whence snīcan.^[1]

Verb

snǣcan^[2]^[3]

to sneak

Derived terms

Middle English: *sneaken
- English: sneak
- Scots: sneak, snaik, sneke

References

^ Seebold, Elmar (1970) “SNEIK-A-”, in Vergleichendes und etymologisches Wörterbuch der germanischen starken Verben (Janua Linguarum. Series practica; 85) (in German), Paris, Den Haag: Mouton, →ISBN, page 443
^ Torp, Alf (1919) “snika”, in Nynorsk Etymologisk Ordbok, Oslo: H. Aschehoug and Co. (W. Nygaard), page 810: “ags. *snǽcan”
^ Hellquist, Elof (1922) “Snǐken”, in Svensk etymologisk ordbok [Swedish etymological dictionary]‎^[1] (in Swedish), Lund: C. W. K. Gleerups förlag, page 671: “ags. *snǽcan”

[1] Seebold, Elmar (1970) “SNEIK-A-”, in Vergleichendes und etymologisches Wörterbuch der germanischen starken Verben (Janua Linguarum. Series practica; 85) (in German), Paris, Den Haag: Mouton, →ISBN, page 443

[2] Torp, Alf (1919) “snika”, in Nynorsk Etymologisk Ordbok, Oslo: H. Aschehoug and Co. (W. Nygaard), page 810: “ags. *snǽcan”

[3] Hellquist, Elof (1922) “Snǐken”, in Svensk etymologisk ordbok [Swedish etymological dictionary]‎^[1] (in Swedish), Lund: C. W. K. Gleerups förlag, page 671: “ags. *snǽcan”

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