LL-L "Etymology" 2008.03.27 (04) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 27 March 2008 - Volume 04
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Words

Folks,

I "discovered" another Dutch loanword in American English: "to snoop" in the
sense of 'consume dainties in a clandestine manner' (OED). The word first
appeared in print in the early 19th century.

The origin appears to be Dutch *snoep-* ([snu:p-], *snoepen*). The Low Saxon
cognate is *snoup-* ([snOUp-],* snoupen* (*snopen*)). (The vowel shift
equivalents are consistent.) Both have the same meaning, although the
"clandestine" part no longer needs to be there in the latter, often just
meaning 'to snack on treats' (or 'to graze' in the sense of having snacks).
This has been taken over into Hamburg Missingsch as *snopen* or
*schnopen*with the same meaning. The Standard German equivalent is
*naschen*.

What is interesting is that "to snoop" acquired the further meaning 'to pry
into matters one need not be concerned with'. The "clandestine" part appears
to play a role here, and perhaps there is the idea of "to pick up bits and
pieces of other people's affairs in a clandestine manner'.

I wonder if this is related to German *schnüffel-* (*schnüffeln*) 'to
sniffle', 'to snuffle', 'to sniff', 'to nuzzle', 'to snoop'. Of course, this
contains the frequentative or iterative suffix *-l-*. And then there is
German *schnupper-* (*schnuppern*) 'to sniff', this one with frequentative *
-r-*. I suspect this of being a Low Saxon loan, would expect it to be **
schnüffer-* otherwise. What do you think about this?

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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