- Today's Word
Snibblesnarf
[SNIB-ul-snarf]
Definition
- (verb) To eat quickly and messily, usually out of extreme hunger or while distracted. It’s when you’re so famished or engrossed in something else that you devour your food without much regard for manners or appearance.
Example
After skipping lunch and working late, Tom snibblesnarf’d his dinner while catching up on emails, leaving a trail of crumbs on his keyboard.
Fun Fact
The word “snibblesnarf” is an example of a linguistic device called reduplication, where sounds or words are repeated with slight variations for emphasis or to create new meanings. In this case, “snibble” suggests quick, small movements (like nibbling), while “snarf” implies hasty consumption. This type of playful word creation is common in many languages and often produces words that are both fun to say and intuitively understandable. Interestingly, the act of eating quickly while distracted has been studied by nutritionists, who warn that it can lead to overeating as the brain doesn’t have time to register feelings of fullness.
(noun) The state of having a damaged or lost reputation; being held in low regard by others or by the public.
The firm’s disrepute spread faster than any press release could contain — three clients left before the week was out.
Disrepute combines the prefix dis- meaning “away” or “reversal” with repute, from the Latin reputare — “to reckon” or “to think over” — built from re- (“again”) and putare (“to think” or “to reckon”). Repute entered English in the 15th century meaning the general opinion held of someone; disrepute followed as its logical opposite, describing the condition of having that opinion turn decisively negative.