snoop
part of speech
verb (snoop, snoops, snooped, snooping); noun (a snoop, snoops)
meaning for a pupil
1) To snoop is to look secretly around a place or into someone's private things to find out about them. tree →
2) A snoop is a person who snoops, someone nosy. tree →
3) (informal) To snoop on someone is to spy on them or watch what they do. tree →
sense in the lessons
In everyday life snooping means poking into things that are not yours, like reading someone's diary or looking in drawers; it is seen as rude. In stories detectives and nosy neighbours snoop to find clues. Phrases: «snoop around», «snoop on someone», «snoop through», «a nosy snoop».
examples
- Stop snooping in my bag! tree →
- My little brother snooped around my room while I was out. tree →
- The detective snooped through the old letters looking for a clue. tree →
- Our neighbour is such a snoop; she always watches from her window. tree →
- I caught him snooping on my phone. tree →
- The cat snooped about the kitchen for scraps. tree →
- Apps should not snoop on what children do online. tree →
note
Mostly informal. Past: snooped. Usually negative: calling someone a snoop is a mild insult. Similar: pry, nose about, spy. «Snoopy» is the name of a famous cartoon dog, and «snoopy» (adjective) means nosy.
In the corpora
- Snooping means looking at things that are meant for someone else: diaries, messages, letters, desks, conversations through a door.
- Asking is honest; snooping is taking what was not given.
- Snooping can hurt the snooper too: you may read something unkind about yourself.
- Not being caught does not stop the guilty feeling that often comes with snooping.
- Other snoops end the same way.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «snoop» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.