snag

• IPA^(key): /ˈsnæɡ/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æɡ

From earlier snag (“stump or branch of a tree”), from Middle English *snagge, *snage, from Old Norse snagi (“clothes peg”) (compare Old Norse snag-hyrndr (“snag-horned, having jagged corners”)), perhaps ultimately from a derivative of Proto-Germanic *snakk-, *snēgg, variations of *snakaną (“to crawl, creep, wind about”).

Compare Norwegian snag, snage (“protrusion; projecting point”), Icelandic snagi (“peg”). Also see Dutch snoek (“pike”).^[1]

snag (plural snags)

1. A stump or base of a branch that has been lopped off; a short branch, or a sharp or rough branch.

   Synonyms: knot, protuberance

   • 1697, Virgil, “The Ninth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:

     The coat of arms / Now on a naked snag in triumph borne.

2. A dead tree that remains standing.
3. A tree, or a branch of a tree, fixed in the bottom of a river or other navigable water, and rising nearly or quite to the surface, by which boats are sometimes pierced and sunk.
   • 1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1844, →OCLC:

     ‘A’most used-up I am, I do declare!’ she observed. ‘The jolting in the cars is pretty nigh as bad as if the rail was full of snags and sawyers.’

   • 1899 (please specify the page), Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part:

     […] I watched for sunken stones; I was learning to clap my teeth smartly before my heart flew out, when I shaved by a fluke some infernal sly old snag that would have ripped the life out of the tin-pot steamboat and drowned all the pilgrims; […]

4. (by extension) Any sharp protuberant part of an object, which may catch, scratch, or tear other objects brought into contact with it.
5. A tooth projecting beyond the others; a broken or decayed tooth.

   Synonym: snaggletooth

   • 1718, Mat[thew] Prior, “Alma: Or, The Progress of the Mind”, in Poems on Several Occasions, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], and John Barber […], →OCLC, canto II, page 354:

     To ſee our Women's Teeth look white. / And ev'ry ſaucy ill-bred Fellow / Sneers at a Mouth profoundly yellow. / In China none hold Women ſweet, / Except their Snags are black as jett.

6. (figuratively) A problem or difficulty with something.

   Synonym: hitch

   we hit a snag

   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

     The snag in this business of falling in love, aged relative, is that the parties of the first part so often get mixed up with the wrong parties of the second part, robbed of their cooler judgment by the parties of the second part's glamour.

   • 2024 July 13, Tim Bradshaw, Michael Acton, “Apple's headset faces struggle to gain attention of developers and end users”, in FT Weekend, page 12:

     Scarcity of outstanding content viewed as snag for unproved and highly priced Vision Pro device[.]

7. A pulled thread or yarn, as in cloth.
8. One of the secondary branches of an antler.

   Synonyms: tine, point

snag (third-person singular simple present snags, present participle snagging, simple past and past participle snagged)

1. To catch or tear (e.g. fabric) upon a rough surface or projection.

   Be careful not to snag your stockings on that concrete bench!

2. To damage or sink (a vessel) by collision; said of a tree or branch fixed to the bottom of a navigable body of water and partially submerged or rising to just beneath the surface.

   The steamboat was snagged on the Mississippi River in 1862.

3. (fishing) To fish by means of dragging a large hook or hooks on a line, intending to impale the body (rather than the mouth) of the target.

   We snagged for spoonbill from the eastern shore of the Mississippi River.

4. (slang, transitive) To obtain or pick up, especially in a quick or surreptitious way.

   Ella snagged a bottle of water from the fridge before leaving for her jog.

   • 2017, Off Track Planet's Travel Guide for the Young, Sexy, and Broke:

     Tickets are cheaper the younger you are—snag a youth ticket (if you're twenty-five or under) for a 35 percent discount. If both you and your travel partner are twenty-six or older, the Small Group Saver will knock off 15 percent.

   • 2023 June 16, Megan Uy, “25 Absolutely Gorgeous Crochet Clothing Pieces You Won’t Stop Wearing This Summer”, in Cosmopolitan‎^[1]:

     Your upcoming Instagram beach photos are begging you to snag this bright orange maxi. BEGGING. Like, oof! Do you see that high slit? 10/10. No notes.

5. (UK, dialect) To cut the snags or branches from, as the stem of a tree; to hew roughly.
   • 1846, Sir Richard Levinge, “Echoes from the Backwoods”, in The New Monthly, volume 76:

     When felled and snagged, one end of the tree is placed upon a small sledge, and dragged out of the bush by oxen

6. (slang, Native American) To have noncommittal sexual relations.
   • 2021 September 20, “Satvrday”, in Reservation Dogs, spoken by Big:

     Shit, I remember when you were just rugged, bro. Snagging around and tepee-creeping at the stomp dance.

The Australian National Dictionary Centre suggests that snag as slang for "sausage" most likely derives from the earlier British slang for "light meal", although it makes no comment on how it came to be specifically applied to sausages.Meanings and origins of Australian words and idioms The word's use in football slang originates as a shortening of "sausage roll", rhyming slang for "goal", to sausage, and hence, by synonymy, snag.

snag (plural snags)

1. (UK, dialect, obsolete) A light meal.
2. (Australia, informal, colloquial) A sausage. [From 1937.]

   Synonyms: (UK) banger, (NZ) snarler

   • 2005, Peter Docker, Someone Else′s Country, ReadHowYouWant, published 2010, page 116:

     I fire up the barbie and start cooking snags.

   • 2007, Jim Ford, Don't Worry, Be Happy: Beijing to Bombay with a Backpack, page 196:

     ‘You can get the chooks and snags from the fridge if you want,’ he replied.
     I smiled, remembering my bewilderment upon receiving exactly the same command at my very first barbecue back in Sydney a month after I′d first arrived.

   • 2010, Fiona Wallace, Sense and Celebrity, page 25:

     ‘Hungry? We′ve got plenty of roo,’ one of the men said as she walked up. He pointed with his spatula, ‘and pig snags, cow snags, beef and chicken.’

3. (Australian rules football, slang) A goal.
   • 2003, Greg Baum, "Silver anniversary of a goal achieved", The Age

     "It just kept coming down and I just kept putting them through the middle," he said. "I got an opportunity, and I kicked a few snags."

• Appendix:Australian rhyming slang
• Appendix:Australian rules football slang

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

snag (plural snags)

1. A misnaged, an opponent to Chassidic Judaism (more likely modern, for cultural reasons).

snag (plural snags)

1. (informal, uncommon) Acronym of sensitive new age guy.
   • 1999, Anthony McMahon, Taking Care of Men: Sexual Politics in the Public Mind, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 103:

     Over time, the ‘sensitive’ aspect of the SNAG has become paramount.

   • 2006 September 22, Jason Deans, “Single white media male. GSOH …”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     Mediadates offers handy tips for online dating virgins and a list of popular abbreviations used in website chatrooms. So you can tell a shag from a "Snag" - sensitive new age guy.

   • 2008 [2001], Toby Young, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Philadelphia, PA: Da Capo, →ISBN, page 76:

     Naturally, the Frat Boy and the Toadmeister decided to hold a contest to see who could “drop the hammer” with Pippi first. Chris’s strategy was to pretend to be a “snag” (Sensitive New Age Guy) in the hope of appealing to her alternative side.

• SNAG

• New Man

• AGNs, Angs, ngas, NSAG, GNAs, nags, ANGs, gans, GANs, sang, Sang

• IPA^(key): /sˠn̪ˠaɡ/

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

snag m (genitive singular snaga, nominative plural snaganna)

1. a catch (hesitation in voice), gasp, sob
2. a lull (period of rest)

• snagcheol (“jazz”)

Probably related to Scottish Gaelic snag (“sharp knock”), also "wood-pecker."

snag m (genitive singular snaga, nominative plural snaganna)

1. a treecreeper (bird of the family Certhiidae)

   Synonym: beangán

2. goby (fish)

   Synonym: mac siobháin

Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Eclipsis
snag	shnag after an, tsnag	not applicable
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “snag”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN
• de Bhaldraithe, Tomás (1959) “snag”, in English-Irish Dictionary, An Gúm
• “snag”, in New English-Irish Dictionary, Foras na Gaeilge, 2013-2024
• Quiggin, E. C. (1906) A Dialect of Donegal, Cambridge University Press, page 87

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• IPA^(key): /s̪n̪ˠak/

snag f (genitive singular snaige, plural snagan)

1. sharp knock (sound)

• snagan-daraich

Scottish Gaelic mutation
Radical	Lenition
snag	shnag after "an", t-snag
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.