snide adj.
1. fake.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Vocabulum 83: snide stuff Bad money. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | ‘Six Years in the Prisons of England’ in Temple Bar Mag. Nov. 534: You start in the morning with a good sovereign and a ‘snyde’ half-sovereign in your pocket […] You change your mind after you have ‘rung’ your snyde half ‘quid’ with the good one. [...] You can get snyde jewelry made to look the same as the real stuff. [Ibid.] 538: Snyde, you know, means counterfeit or bad, anything bad we call snydey. | |
| Sl. Dict. 299: Snide bad, spurious, contemptible. As, ‘a SNIDE fellow,’ ‘SNIDE coin,’ &c. | |
 | Decatur Dly Republican (IL) 29 May 6/1: The simpleton never saw London or the Queen [...] his pretensions are all snide. | |
| Texas Cow Boy (1950) 193: I [...] let an old flop-eared Jew take me in to the extent of a hundred dollars for a lot of snide jewelry. | |
| Seth’s Brother’s Wife 107: You just everlastingly gave it to that snide show to-night [...] The sooner those fakirs understand that they can’t play Tecumseh people for chumps, the better. | |
| Sporting Times 29 Mar. 6/4: The watch being a gilded Waterbury, and the chain snide, I did not feel my loss so acutely as I should have done had they been of greater value. | |
| ‘’Frisco Kid’s Story’ in High School Aegis X 15 Feb. 2–3: I took [the locket] ter see wot it wuz like, an’ if it wuz snide. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Aus. Sl. Dict. 77: Snide, bad, as ‘snide stuff,’ bad money. | |
| Pink ’Un and Pelican 52: Unfortunately, in their haste they shed the snide tickets on the way. | |
| Hooligan Nights 8: Me and ’im was making snide coin. | |
| Sporting Times 10 Mar. 1/4: The wealth of the former was only his gas, / And Mabella’s gold pieces were snide. | |
| W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 1 Dec. 1/1: Some of the beer sold hereabouts is still of the hog-wash variety [...] half-a-dozen customers were last week prostrated by a snide snifter. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 26 July 1/1: [headline] Snide Auctioneers. Of sharks and sharkings in Sydney there seems no end, and one of latest snide affairs [...] is that of ‘shypoo’ auctionaeers. | |
| Mr. Jackson 285: Have you seen the necklace, dearie? [...] if it’s snide the Watsons don’t need it. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 10 Dec. 95/2: The jaundiced critic who says it’s snide is a carping nark and a base ingrate. | |
| Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 2 June 21/2: I sold the snide watch and chain to a bush jockey for two quid. | |
| Blister Act I: What if he won’t buy pearls snide or steal another chap’s divers? | |
| Phenomena in Crime 199: In the counterfeit rackets, the making of snide coins and base notes. | |
| Inside the C.I.D. 200: Snide Counterfeit. | |
| Fings I i: Nuffink but a load of schnide punters and tuppenny ’apenny whores without a pot between them. | |
| Lowspeak. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Star Struck (1999) 134: The Kellys [...] stuck to the old ways. Protection rackets and schneid sports gear, long firm frauds. | |
| Awaydays 13: Elvis and I stand dixie at the door while Kev the Man empties the fruit machine with snide ten-bobs. | |
| Viva La Madness 17: Rent a decent sized motor on a passable snide US license. | |
| Dead Man’s Trousers 71: — It’s goat tae be snide though...Vic Syme, likesay. |
2. second-rate, useless.
| Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 67/2: It was a small sum considering, but Joe said, ‘’twur a great syght better’n selling “snyde” cigars and rotten tobacco’. | |
| Life and Adventures of Ben Hogan n.p.: Some of the sporting papers talked of this as a ‘snide’ affair, and refused to give either of the men credit for the battle. | |
| Glimpses of Gotham and City Characters 14/1: We find a few ladies and gentlemen, some of whom have been singing ‘Pinafore’ at a ‘shneid’ theatre on the Saturday night, furnishing a variety of fancy music. | |
| Lantern (New Orleans, LA) 9 Apr. 2: Who runs dat snide hash house. | |
| Gal’s Gossip 78: He [...] gets a precarious living soliciting orders for a snide firm of photographers. | |
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 25 Sept. 3/2: When I’m horse from yellin’ bottle oh! / And business is snide . | |
| Fact’ry ’Ands 180: ’Tain’t ther liquor wot’s snide, it’s ther dead hookity hides what it gets chuted into. | |
| ‘The New Fable of the Private Agitator’ in Ade’s Fables 12: A Fairy Wand had been waved above the snide Bungalow, and it was now a Queen Anne Chateau. | |
| You Can’t Win (2000) 62: This is a pretty snide jungle [...] no cans. | |
| (con. mid-1960s) Glasgow Gang Observed 235: Snide – ‘snide gear’, i.e., clothes that are out of fashion, contemptible, inferior. | |
| Lingo 147: Something or someone referred to as snide was false or worthless. | |
| Raiders 81: He was selling snide perfume out of a suitcase in Catford market. |
3. unpleasant, mean, sneering.
| Chicago Sporting Gazette 4 Aug. n.p.: There is a lot of snide young tid-bits at 376 State Street. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 9 May 22/3: I consider this meeting not a meeting of men – (‘Lay in, Pikey!’ and laughter) – but a meeting of nineteeners – (uproar) – and the snidest and ugliest nineteener in all this snide and ugly meeting – (uproar) – is – is – the party with the entrails – (laughter) – in the chair. | |
| Sheffield Gloss. (Supp.) 54: Snidy, mean, selfish. | |
| Reynolds’s Newspaper 8 Jan. 2/6: Black Alice [...] Snidey Dickson, and half a dozen others. | |
| Tramping with Tramps 277: Utica [...] is sort of a snide place this time of year. You see, the hop-pickers are around there, and the police always arrest a lot of ’em, and you fellows are likely to be jugged too. | |
| Life In Sing Sing 253: Snide. Mean. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 12 Jan. 11/4: Girls is sold away to people / Who are snide, I must confess. | |
| in Havana Eve. Telegram 21 Sept. 2/3: When I was a kid in New York and Philadelphia and those spurious gem merchants made the rounds showing a piece of junk — we always said: ‘Aw, that’s a Forney!’ Our snide way of saying it was cheap, false and counterfeit. | |
| ‘Dog Collared’ in Popular Detective Oct. 🌐 A snide-looking citizen happened to come in the house of detention. | |
| All These Condemned (2001) 61: It was an article on Wilma [...] It was one of those snide jobs [...] Nothing libelous, but very, very tongue in cheek. | |
| Stand on Me 22: He flogged this picture to some shnide art dealer. | |
| Guntz 63: The real reason these geezers gave me a kicking was not because I had said some shnide remarks. | |
| Inside the Und. 46: And I am not being snide about it. | |
| (con. 1940s–60s) ‘Alvarez’ in Eve. Sun Turned Crimson (1980) in Huncke Reader (1998) 196: We yelled and argued; snide remarks, sarcasm, hate, general shit. | |
| Boston Globe (MA) 25 May 63/2: Lambeer said you said some snidey things to him. | |
| Yes We have No 214: A snide reference to the fifty-seven varieties it’s supposed to contain. | |
| Layer Cake 31: How can you call him snide in this game? Everyone’s snide in this game. | |
| Killing Pool 6: They’re all nudges and snidey little in-comments. | |
| Squeeze Me 294: A snide cease-and-desist letter from lawyers representing Ms Stevie Nicks. |
4. smart, aware; thus snideness [a positive use that implies the ‘clever’ aspects of fakery]
| ‘’Arry on the Elections’ in Punch 12 Dec. 277/2: If you think my snide patter will help you, wire up, and I’ll jest toddle down. | |
| ‘’Arry on the Sincerest Form of Flattery’ in Punch 20 Sept. 144/2: ’Tisn’t grammar and spelling makes patter, nor yet snips and snaps of snide talk. | |
![[Ind]](/static/img/flags/ind.png "India") | Civil & Milit. Gaz. (Lahore) 18 Oct. 4/3: An’ our purge is five annas a quart, Bill / Rather snide — eh? for Tommy’s rupees? | |
| Vultures of the City in Illus. Police News 15 Dec. 12/1: He’s snide. Bill—too much the old soldier he is for me. | |
| Viva La Madness 113: The tracker [...] was still pumping out its snide signal in spite of being apparently deaded. |
5. corrupt; ‘fixed’.
| Shady Pastorals n.p.: Sometimes the police will help the thieves by getting snide witnesses... who will swear anything according to instructions [F&H]. | |
| Sporting Sketches in Sportsman (Melbourne) (18/10/1898) 5/8: ‘He stood up [...] to make a snide book on the furst race with no brass at all in his kicksy’. | |
| W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 19 Dec. 11/1: The pastures of a distant land seem greenest and most desirable to the snide bookmakers holding a deal of other people's money. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 26 July 1/1: [headline] Snide Auctioneers. Of sharks and sharkings in Sydney there seems no end. | |
| Shadows of the Night in Illus. Police News 3 Aug. 12/3: ‘I knowed he were on some snide game’. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 14 July 1/1: One of them is the keeper of a semi-snide hashery. | |
| Dead Man’s Gold in Illus. Police News 10 Apr. 12/2: We saw by your features that you were snidey. | |
| Truth (Perth) 25 June 8/8: They played poker for cigars, sir, / On a snide machine, and so / Which did never win them nothin. | |
| City of Spades (1964) 228: He told you I was a snide lawyer, I suppose? | |
| Decent Ride 36: Got the market fuckin covered, the snidey cunt! |
6. deemed to have contravened rules.
| Scarlet City 399: Mr Schneid, who had been summoned before the Stewards of various Meetings time without number. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Jul. 26/4: The committee can declare the match ‘snide,’ and scatter the prize amongst the hospitals if not satisfied that the lanky black and his more lumpy opponent have done their darnedest. |
7. amoral, wicked.
| Tragedy of the White House in Illus. Police News 10 Sept. 12/1: ‘Blustering Bill [...] is snide (bad) to the core and if ever a man deserved to be scragged he does’. |
In derivatives
1. astuteness, awareness, mental acuity.
| ‘’Arry on ’onesty’ in Punch 31 Jan. 60/1: I’m a sort of hapostle, they tell me, of snideness and taste for wot’s wot. |
2. sneering, condecension.
| Longview News-Jrnl (TX) 14 Jan. 4/7: Of course these [...] fellows have nothing to do with such snideness. | |
| Star Press (Muncie, IN) 9 May 25/3: No Arrogance, No Snideness. | |
| De Moines Register (IA) 8 Mar. 19/3: I want it to be critical but with gusto, not snideness. | |
| Asbury Park Press (NJ) 14 Aug. E7/4: ‘[A] sort of snideness that’s creeping into some shows’. | |
| Palm Beach Post (FL) 22 Mar. D017/1: [A] book claiming that abusive snideness has caused everything from the demise of journalism to Al Gore’s failed 2000 election. | |
| Akron Beacon Jrnl (OH) 15 Feb. A013/1: The inevitable creep from sarcasm to snideness. |
1. counterfeit.
| Worcs. Chron. 13 Mar. Supp. 2/1: I asked the man not in custody, whether he had got rid of the things [i.e. stolen cutlery]? He said, No; they were snidey. That means they were not good. | |
| Secrets of Tramp Life Revealed 15: He [...] pulls out a ‘snidey’ piece and asks for change. |
2. bad, unfavourable.
| Athletic News (Manchester) 20 Sept. 3/2: If a fellow owes you a bob and takes it Into his head to send it to you, you are a snidey member if you don’t send him a post card telling him you have got it. | |
| Birmingham Dly Post 31 Mar. 3/5: I append a few cant words and expressions for those who take an interest in the subject [...] snidey (bad). | |
| DSUE (8th edn) 1103/1: from ca.1870. |
3. sneering, supercilious.
| White Talk Black Talk 40: He made snidey little remarks, piss-taking. | |
| Filth 74: We are paid to do a job we can’t fucking well do because of all these snidey little cunts: the politicians, lawyers, judges [...] and their ilk. | |
| Stump 186: Yeh snidey bastard. | |
| Dispatch (Moline, IL) 11 Sept. 14/3: The adjective ‘snide’ [...] the adverb ‘snidey’ [and] the noun ‘snideness. | |
| (con. 1980s) Skagboys 270: Before ye start making any mair snidey comments aboot people, ah’d better lit ye ken that we jist goat engaged. |
unpleasant, menacing.
| Layer Cake 183: The silencer looks snidy, chunky, with old-school black electrical tape wrapped round and round it. |
In compounds
(US Und.) an easily opened safe.
| ‘Und. and Its Vernacular’ in Clues mag. 158–62: snidebox Safe that can be opened with little effort. |
a counterfeit diamond.
| Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era. |
one who is smart, aware, ‘fly’.
| Sl. Dict. 299: Snide Also used as a substantive, as, ‘He’s a snide,’ though this seems but a contraction of SNIDE ’UN. | |
| ‘’Arry on His Critics and Champions’ in Punch 14 Apr. 180/1: We snide ’uns are birds of a feather, and wide-oh at spotting the net. |