snippet

English

Etymology

From snip +‎ -et. Compare snippock.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈsnɪpɪt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈsnɪpɪt/, [ˈsnɪpɪ̈(ʔ)t̚]

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪpɪt

Noun

snippet (plural snippets)

1. A small part of something, such as a song or fabric; sample.

   From the snippet I heard of their rehearsal, they sound pretty good.

   • 1902, Beatrix Potter, The Tailor of Gloucester::

     He cut his coats without waste; according to his embroidered cloth, they were very small ends and snippets that lay about upon the table […]

   • 1959 April, P. Ransome-Wallis, “The Southern in Trouble on the Kent Coast”, in Trains Illustrated, London: Ian Allan Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 216:

     On another occasion a "Schools" class, No. 30911 Dover, with a load of eight bogies on the same train was badly delayed by signals all the way, but made very determined attempts to pick up time whenever possible. This resulted in a sustained speed of 50 m.p.h. up Sole Street bank and several snippets in the "eighties".

   • 1988, Roald Dahl, Matilda:

     Miss Honey smiled. It was extraordinary, she told herself, how this little snippet of a girl seemed suddenly to be taking charge of her problems, and with such authority, too.

2. (computing) A text file containing a relatively small amount of code, useless by itself, along with instructions for inserting that code into a larger codebase.

Synonyms

• (small part): excerpt

Derived terms

• DNA snippet
• in-snippet
• snippet journalism
• snippety

Translations

a tiny piece or part

• Bulgarian: отрязък (bg) m (otrjazǎk)
• Catalan: fragment (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 片段 (zh) (piànduàn)

• Czech: útržek m
• Dutch: fragment (nl)
• Finnish: pätkä (fi)
• French: fragment (fr) m
• German: Stück (de) n, Teil (de) n, Schnipsel (de) m
• Greek: απόσπασμα (el) (apóspasma)
• Ingrian: pätkä
• Korean: 끄트러기 (kkeuteureogi), 조각 (ko) (jogak), 단편 (ko) (danpyeon)
• Maori: pitopito
• Norwegian: snutt (no) m
• Polish: skrawek (pl) m, strzęp (pl) m, (mały) fragment (pl) m
• Portuguese: pedacinho m, fragmento (pt) m
• Russian: кусо́к (ru) m (kusók), лоску́т (ru) m (loskút), обло́мок (ru) m (oblómok), оско́лок (ru) m (oskólok), фрагме́нт (ru) m (fragmént), обре́зок (ru) m (obrézok), часть (ru) f (častʹ), клочо́к (ru) (kločók)
• Spanish: pedazo (es) m, retazo (es) m, trozo (es) m

a textfile containing a relatively small amount of code

• French: snippet (fr) m
• Greek: απόσπασμα κώδικα n (apóspasma kódika)
• Russian: кусо́к (ru) m (kusók), фрагме́нт (ru) m (fragmént), часть (ru) f (častʹ)
• Spanish: snippet m

Verb

snippet (third-person singular simple present snippets, present participle snippeting or (nonstandard) snippetting, simple past and past participle snippeted or (nonstandard) snippetted)

1. (transitive, often computing) To produce a snippet (small part) of; to excerpt.

   We snippeted the blog posts for display on the home page.

2. To make small cuts, to snip, particularly with scissors.
   • 1902, Beatrix Potter, The Tailor of Gloucester::

     All day long while the light lasted he sewed and snippetted […]

Usage notes

• Doubled ‘tt’ is incorrect per standard spelling rules, but reasonably common.

Synonyms

• (tiny part): excerpt

References

• snippet on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• steppin'