Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a lawyer, esp. one who has presented a large bill; thus the inflated bill itself [a pun on the bird’s long bill].

1751		W. Kenrick Falstaff’s Wedding (1766) II vii: Ah! shallow Master Shallow! But who could have thought that the snipe would have went to counsel, to get himself laugh’d at?
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 221: snipe a long bill; also a term for attorneys, ? a race with a remarkable propensity to long bills.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

2. a defaulter on the Stock Exchange.

1870		J.K. Medbery Men and Mysteries of Wall Street 131: In street argot, they are ‘snipes’ and ‘lame ducks’.
1900		S. Nelson ABC of Wall Street 159: Snipe, an obsolete term for a curbstone broker [DA].

3. in contexts of smoking.

4. (Ulster, also snipe-nose) the nose; one who has a long nose.

1880		D.W. Barrett Life and Work among Navvies 48: Should length of nose be as prominent a feature [...] ‘Tweedle-Beak’ and ‘Snipe-Nose’ will soon be applied.
1997		Share Slanguage.
2001		A. Sillitoe Birthday 54: I [...] don’t want to live in a place where some snipe-nosed fuckface is going to point a knife at my guts.
2003		N. Griffiths Stump 186: Poison? So’s all that fuckin bugle an billy yeh stick up yer snipe.

5. a derog. term of abuse.

[1636		W. Davenant Wits II i: Thou shalt find what silly snipes These witty gentlemen shall prove, and in their own confession too, or I’ll cry flounders else].
1834		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) 15 Mar. 2/2: He looks more like a snipe than a gentleman [...] Do you take, you blackguard Snipe Simpleton?
1856		Life in Boston & NY Boston, (MA) 11 Oct. n.p.: Look out, you old snipe, or we shall show how you travel with other men’s wives to the watering places.
1863		Criminal Life (NY) 19 Dec. n.p.: Those benzine punishers, snipes and monkies.
1873		J. O’Connor Wanderings of a Vagabond 143: He don’t know enough to pick up anything, unless it’s a pocket-book that isn’t his’n, the consumptive snipe.
1886		Manchester Courier 16 Oct. 10/6: ‘You miserable little snipe,’ he roared.
1891		A. Day Mysterious Beggar 268: Cuss the snipe!
1894		Coburg Leader (Vic.) 24 Nov. 2/4: Lyndhurst reckoned the Pots were snipes, so they are, though snipes are hard to catch.
1899		H. Garland Boy Life on the Prairie 140: You shut up, or I’ll break your jaw, you little country snipe.
1894		A. Morrison Tales of Mean Streets (1983) 39: That? Well, it is a measly snipe.
1914		‘Ian Hay’ Lighter Side of School Life 202: Gainford is rather a snipe, and has been married for years and years.
1915		S. Ford Shorty McCabe on the Job 63: But even if she is a public dancer, that snipe shouldn’t have insulted her.
1923		C.B. Poultney Mrs. ’Arris 72: Don’t you call my ’usband a little snipe.
1933		Albury Banner (NSW) 17 Nov. 21/3: But big Philitus Phinney, he was tickled as could be / To think they thought a snipe like that could lick a chap like me!
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 216: snipe [...] a very small person.
1955		D. Niland Shiralee 177: The young sharp-faced snipe with the candle-grease skin.
1967		(con. 1940s) M. Dibner Admiral (1968) 98: You’ll deliver, mister, or I’ll throw the book at every snipe in the engine room.
1971		Current Sl. VI 10: Snipe, n. An engineer; an engineering student.
2010		K. Richards Life 225: He knows he desrves it, little snipe.

6. (US) a male prostitute or one who befriends homosexuals to acquire money, esp. by robbing.

1953

W. Brown Monkey On My Back (1954) 203: He and his friends were what the police call ‘toilet-snipes.’ Their racket was to hang around night clubs, especially those known to be ‘fag joints’ – meeting places for homosexuals. [Ibid.] 203: The snipes prey on the regulars and the outsiders indiscriminately.