SNECK

Wild Word Friday!

Snitch, snatched, have SNECK? I don’t think that would pass muster with most English teachers, but the words are related – not in the sense of tenses, but as “cousins,” descendants of the same Middle English word, snecchen or snacchen – to snatch or grab something. SNECK is a dialectical form that refers to the latch of a door (which grabs, you have to admit) , or the sound that a door latch makes. In the latter regard, SNECK is onomatopoeic – a word that imitates the sound it refers to.

SNECK lends itself to a couple of interesting but obscure usages. In a Scots dialect it shows up in the word, SNECKdraw and means a person who is slyly trying to worm his way in. I love that word – SNECKdraw! In Kendal, England, someone developed a fish hook and named it the Kendal SNECK Bent.

I’m thinking that I need to use the word SNECK to rename those metal hanger things that we use to attach decorations to our Christmas trees. How about that? A perfect one-word name for something most people refer to as ornament hangers. After all, it’s a lot easier to say SNECK. As in, “Could somebody please hand me a SNECK?”

Can you think of any other way to use the super little word SNECK? Do you have any made-up words of your own?

Blessings!

Sue

(Some information from Webster’s Third New International Dictionary Unabridged. Photos from Wikipedia.)