Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Rudely sarcastic or disrespectful; snide.
  • adjective Irritable or short-tempered; irascible.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective informal Snide and sarcastic; usually out of irritation, often humorously.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From dialectal snark, to nag, from snark, snork, to snore, snort, from Dutch and Low German snorken, of imitative origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

snark +‎ -y; 1906, as “irritable”, from 1866 snark ("to snort"), by (onomatopoeia). Compare Low German snarken, North Frisian snarke, Swedish snarka.

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Examples

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  • (informal) Snide and sarcastic; usually out of irritation.

    July 27, 2009