Where does “Snark” come from?

Snark (English) comes from English snail, from Middle English snayl, from Old English sneġel, from Proto-Germanic snagilaz — snail.

Snark (English): A fictional animal in Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark

Definitions

  1. A fictional animal in Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark

Ancestry of “Snark”, step by step

Snark traces back through 3 separate lines of ancestry.

via English snail

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1EnglishsnailAny of very many animals (either hermaphroditic or nonhermaphroditic), of the class Gastropoda, having a coiled shell
2Middle EnglishsnaylA snail or slug; a gastropod
3Old Englishsneġela snail or slug, a gastropod
4Proto-Germanicsnagilazsnail

via Middle English snarken

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Middle Englishsnarkento snort, to snore
2Old Englishsnarcan—
3Proto-Germanicsnarkōnąto snore, snort
4Proto-Indo-European(s)nerg-to sound, murmur, growl

via English shark

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1EnglishsharkA scaleless, predatory fish of the superorder...
2GermanSchurkevillain, scoundrel

Words derived from “Snark”

Every word from Proto-Germanic snagilaz →