asseverate

Pronounced: uh-SEH-vuh-rate, verb

Notes: I didn’t know the meaning, but after I saw it, it made sense

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Yesterday’s word

The word snark means, as a verb, “to make a snide remark”. As a noun, it is

• a mysterious, imaginary animal
• something or someone hard to track down
• a snide remark

First usage

There are multiple origins; one is from the mid-1800s, and the other is from the late 1800s.

Background / Comments

As I noted, I was aware of the adjectival form (snarky – having a rudely critical tone or manner), usually heard as “I was rather snarky with the telemarketer” or “I made a few snarky comments”. The first two definitions above come from Lewis Carroll in his poem The Hunting of the Snark, which was published in 1876 – it didn’t take long for this word to enter English after the poem. When I was in Boy Scouts (long ago), scouts new to camping were often taken on “snipe” hunts; this exactly fits the first definition, so I wonder if “snipe” was somehow corrupted or altered from “snark”. The other meanings come from “snark” being imitative of snort or snore.