snippy
/ˈsnɪpi/
"snippy" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“snippy” is uncommon English (frequency #76,349 among 6,566 “S” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #76,349
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Fragmentary; snipped.
Corpus desk
Index EN-snippy · snippy · English
snippy · rank #76,349 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #76,349
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH snapback
Nearest frequency peer: snapback (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “snippy”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- slavish
slavish
23,658 corpus weight
- sloshed
sloshed
23,656 corpus weight
- snapback
snapback
23,653 corpus weight
- snippy
snippy
23,652 corpus weight
- soberly
soberly
23,651 corpus weight
- Socceroos
Socceroos
23,650 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “snippy” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | snippy |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈsnɪpi/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #76,349 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “snippy” in English
Rare enough to double-check
snippy is uncommon English at frequency #76,349 among 6,566 “S” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed /ˈsnɪpi/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for snippy, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From snip + -y. Compare Saterland Frisian snippig, snippich (“short, brief, blunt”), Dutch snippig (“snippy, shrill”), German Low German snippig (“snippy, snappy”), German schnippisch (“snippy, snappy”). The correct English form is snippy, spelled S-N-I-P-P-Y.
Definition
- 1Fragmentary; snipped.
- 2Irritable; impatient; short-tempered; often, in a condescending way.
- 3Stingy.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how snippy appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Near-synonym: choppy
Near-synonyms: see Thesaurus:stingy, Thesaurus:frugal
Etymology
From snip + -y. Compare Saterland Frisian snippig, snippich (“short, brief, blunt”), Dutch snippig (“snippy, shrill”), German Low German snippig (“snippy, snappy”), German schnippisch (“snippy, snappy”).
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "snippy", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).