snare
/snɛː
/noun
1A trap for catching birds or mammals, typically one having a noose of wire or cord.Most poachers used silent and invisible methods such as wire snares and jaw traps to capture their quarry, be it deer or tigers....
- How many snares would a single hunter set in the forest?
- In her diary entry for 4 June 1832, Sally Brown noted catching two partridges, probably using snares.
Synonyms
trap, gin, net, noose
rare springe
1.1A thing likely to lure or tempt someone into harm or error: seducers laid their snares for innocent provincials...
- Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
- Artists have been consciously aware for a very long time of the conflict between aesthetic image and reality and the fact that this conflict poses a specific set of contradictions, difficulties and potential snares.
- Perhaps, if those children received help at this early stage, they might not fall permanently into the vicious snare of shyness which can leave adults, like Lynne Crawford, reflecting sadly on a life of missed opportunities.
Synonyms
pitfall, trick, trap, tangle, web, mesh, catch, danger, hazard, peril
literary toils
2A length of wire, gut, or hide stretched across a drumhead to produce a rattling sound.
2.1 (also snare drum) A drum fitted with snares; a side drum.He moved with butterfly-like motions between his snare drum, his bass drums and his cymbals in a jubilant pattern....
- Sure, it had a fine array of percussion - timpani, snare drum, bass drum, gong, glockenspiel - but they were just there for effect.
- Gentle brush strokes on a snare drum and soft, lilting vocals are all well and good, but pure pleasantness is apt to fall into the category of being dangerously languorous.
3 Surgery A wire loop for severing polyps or other growths.If a polyp or abnormality is found, your doctor may choose to remove it with a snare or using cautery....
- The operator slowly closed the snare as the wire advanced through the tissue allowing for simultaneous cutting and coagulation.
- If a polyp or abnormal tissue is found, the doctor may choose to remove it with a snare or cautery, or may take a biopsy.
verb [with object]
1Catch (a bird or mammal) in a snare: the foxes were humanely snared...
- Concerned fishermen put pilchard bait on a rock, snared the bird and cut the nylon away.
- Paying no attention, other men were trying to snare birds with their shirts.
- They used a quad bike and a hurling net to snare the pig who had captured the front page readers for the past three weeks.
Synonyms
trap, catch, net, bag, ensnare, entrap
rare springe
1.1Catch or trap (someone): five blackmailers were snared in a police sting...
- Dubbed the Black Widow, the 43-year-old mother-of-one wove webs of fantasy to snare her male victims, often luring them with promises of a new life that police would come to call the American Dream.
- The faintest bit of curiosity is all it takes to snare you.
- It's Sadie Hawkins day, and a prime opportunity for the women of Dogpatch to snare a husband.
Derivatives
snarer
- Tucked among the trees on the northern end of the plains, I visited the decaying remains of a snarer's hut.
- Activities conducted in the area included education and awareness seminars for snarers and trappers during the winter snaring and trapping seasons.
- Only fully certified snarers would be allowed to operate in March ‘to ensure the highest level of protection for non-target species,’ the report recommended.
Origin
Late Old English sneare, from Old Norse snara. sense 2 of the noun is probably from Middle Low German, Middle Dutch snare 'harp string'.