snarf
/snɑː(ɹ)f/verb
snarf is a verb meaning “To eat or consume greedily” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled S-N-A-R-F, and it appears about once in every 24 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does snarf mean?
verb
- 1
slangTo eat or consume greedily.
He snarfed a whole bag of chips in a couple of minutes!
- 2
slangTo take something by dubious means, but without the connotations of stealing; to take something without regard to etiquette.
I snarfed a bunch of freebies from the vendor's booth when he wasn't looking.
- 3
slangTo slurp (computing slang sense); to load in entirely; to copy as a whole.
I snarfed the whole database into my program.
- 4
slangTo fetch (in general).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce snarf?
- /snɑː(ɹ)f/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-au-snarf.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of snarf
- snarfs present, singular, he/she/it
- snarfing participle, present
- snarfed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is snarf?
Snarf appears about once in every 24 million words in written English, the 148,541st 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).
Where does snarf come from?
Probably of imitative origin. Alternatively, perhaps a blend of snack + scarf or snort + scarf. First attested in 1963.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).