snip-snap

English[edit]

Reduplication of snap.

snip-snap (third-person singular simple present snip-snaps, present participle snip-snapping, simple past and past participle snip-snapped)

To shut, close, bite, etc., with a brisk snap.
- 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 40:
  He had picked a small section of scrub behind his shanty which the lagoon below cut into paintable patterns, and with easel snip-snapped up and palette set, was going through the essential preliminary of peering at it[.]
- 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 140:
  No doubt of it, Edmund was at grips with that bumptious little hairy dog. They were going it at the very top note of sadistic fury, screaming and snip-snapping in such a lightning mixture of black and white murder that the eye could not follow it.

snip-snap (plural snip-snaps)

A sharp snapping sound.
(idiomatic) A tart dialogue with quick replies.
- 1728, [Alexander Pope], “(please specify the page)”, in The Dunciad. An Heroic Poem. […], Dublin, London: […] A. Dodd, →OCLC:
  snip-snap short, and interruption smart
- 1933, American Medicine, volume 39, page 73:
  The daily snip-snaps and hubbubs between the cross-purposed couple accentuated that tendency in her. After each altercation Mrs. Coley was seized with an hysterical attack, and my services were needed.