snag

Meanings

Noun

  • A stump or base of a branch that has been lopped off; a short branch, or a sharp or rough branch.
  • A dead tree that remains standing.
  • 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.
  • Any sharp protuberant part of an object, which may catch, scratch, or tear other objects brought into contact with it.
  • A tooth projecting beyond the others; a broken or decayed tooth.
  • A problem or difficulty with something.
  • A pulled thread or yarn, as in cloth.
  • One of the secondary branches of an antler.
  • A light meal.
  • A sausage.
  • A goal.
  • A misnaged, an opponent to Chassidic Judaism (more likely modern, for cultural reasons).
  • Acronym of sensitive new age guy

Verb

  • To catch or tear (e.g. fabric) upon a rough surface or projection.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • To obtain or pick up.
  • To cut the snags or branches from, as the stem of a tree; to hew roughly.

Origin

  • Of North Germanic origin, ultimately from Old Norse snagi ("clothes peg"), perhaps ultimately from a derivative of Proto-Germanic *snakk-, *snÄ“gg, variations of *snakanÄ….
  • Compare Norwegian snag, snage, Icelandic snagi ("peg"). Also see Dutch snoek ("pike").
  • 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. 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.

Modern English dictionary

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