snipe
/snʌɪp
/noun (plural same or snipes)
A wading bird of marshes and wet meadows, with brown camouflaged plumage, a long straight bill, and typically a drumming display flight.
- Gallinago and other genera, family Scolopacidae: several species, e.g. the common snipe (G. gallinago).
- The shocking results from the county are that no breeding pairs of curlew, lapwing, redshank, snipe or oystercatcher were recorded on the sites surveyed.
- Once common species such as the snipe, lapwing and curlew have seen declines of up to 73 per cent; birds like the twite, a moorland version of the linnet, are now gone from some parts of the park.
verb [no object]
1Shoot at someone from a hiding place, especially accurately and at long range: the soldiers in the trench sniped at us...
- We were warned going in last night that we would face being sniped at, shot at, and sure enough the Marines went along that route and we were hit last night.
- Fitted to a rifle, the system could also be used for medium range sniping.
- A few miles away insurgents sniped at U.S. forces and clashes erupted across the city.
2Make a sly or petty verbal attack: the state governor constantly sniped at the president (as noun sniping) there has been some sniping about inept leadership...
- The prize - launched in 1981 - has also endured sniping from critics who claim it is no longer as important as it once was.
- Critics sniped that while his work was solid laboratory chemistry, others were responsible for the brilliant advances that made it possible.
- And that may explain why the elitists in those various fields keep working so hard to discredit and snipe at him.
3 (often as noun sniping) (In an online auction) place a bid judged to be high enough to win an item just before the bidding is scheduled to close: sellers love sniping because it drives up prices I regularly snipe 10 to 5 seconds before the end of eBay auctions...
- Insiders admit that sniping does work in winning auctions.
- My last gripe about eBay: sniping.
- As eBay veterans know, due to the phenomenon known as "sniping," the only bidding that matters in an online auction happens during the final moments.
3.1 [with object] Outbid (another bidder in an online auction) just before the bidding is scheduled to close: what is the point of sitting around for a seven-day auction when half the time you get sniped at the last second...
- I wasn't sniped: I just didn't bid high enough.
- I promise not to stay up till 3.25 am to snipe a US bidder off a pair of yellow leather mod boots which are rightfully mine.
- I was all set to buy my first Banksy and then I got sniped.
Origin
Middle English: probably of Scandinavian origin; compare with Icelandic mýrisnípa; obscurely related to Dutch snip and German Schnepfe.