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PlainSpell

snare

/snɛ(ə)ɹ/noun, verb

snare is a noun meaning “A trap (especially one made from a loop of wire, string, or leather)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled S-N-A-R-E and has one syllable, and it appears 1.8 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of snare is snares.

What does snare mean?

noun

  1. 1

    A trap (especially one made from a loop of wire, string, or leather).

  2. 2

    A mental or psychological trap.

  3. 3

    A loop of cord used in obstetric cases, to hold or to pull a fetus from the mother animal.

  4. 4

    A similar looped instrument formerly used to remove tumours etc.

  5. 5

    A set of stiff wires held under tension against the bottom head of a drum to create a rattling sound.

  6. 6

    A snare drum.

verb

  1. 1

    To catch or hold, especially with a loop.

  2. 2

    To ensnare.

  3. 3

    To play (a snare drum, or a beat on or as if on a snare drum).

noun

as SNARE
  1. 1

    Any of a class of proteins whose primary role is to mediate vesicle fusion.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce snare?

  • US /snɛ(ə)ɹ/
  • UK /snɛə/
  • Australia /sneː/

Snare has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-snare.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of snare

  • snares plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • snaring participle, present
  • snared participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is snare?

Snare appears 1.8 times per million words in written English, the 20,906th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Snare in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchcollet, piège (trap), caisse claire (music: type of drum)
GermanSchlinge, Falle (trap)
Portugueselaço (trap), caixa de guerra, caixa, tarol, tarola (music: type of drum), armadilha (mental trap)
Spanishlazo, cepo, orzuelo (trap), caja (music: type of drum), asechanza (mental trap), bordón (music: set of chains strung across the bottom…)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does snare come from?

From Middle English snare, from Old English sneare (“snare, noose”), from Proto-West Germanic *snarhā, from Proto-Germanic *snarhǭ (“a sling; loop; noose”). Cognate with Old Norse snara. Also related to German Schnur and Dutch snaar, snoer.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).