[antedating] "snuck" 1881

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>What I wonder about it is what strong verb pattern (ablaut) is it
>being modeled on?

MWDEU has a discussion of "snuck". Apparently a candidate ancestor of
"sneak", OE "snican", is parallel to OE "strican" = "strike", so one
might expect "snike"/"snuck" like "strike"/"struck". However there's
no trace of "snike" (AFAIK) in 19th century US where "snuck"
seemingly appeared.

An alternative possibility (IMHO) would be "snuck" arising by analogy
with near-synonymous "slink"/"slunk" -- or, particularly on the
assumption of an alternative/dialectal pronunciation "snick" (cf.
"crick" = "creek", "britches" = "breeches", etc.), maybe by analogy
with "stick"/"stuck".

-- Doug Wilson


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