English

Noun

snippet ‎(plural snippets)

1. A small part of something, such as a song or program; sample.

   From the snippet I heard of their rehearsal, they sound pretty good.

   • 1902, Beatrix Potter, The Tailor of Gloucester:

     He cut his coats without waste; according to his embroidered cloth, they were very small ends and snippets that lay about upon the table …

2. (computing) a textfile containing a relatively small amount of code, useless by itself, along with instructions for inserting that code into a larger codebase

Synonyms

• (small part): excerpt

Translations

Verb

snippet ‎(third-person singular simple present snippets, present participle snippeting or (irregular) snippetting, simple past and past participle snippeted or (irregular) snippetted)

1. To produce a snippet (small part), to excerpt.
2. To make small cuts, to snip, particularly with scissors.
   • 1902, Beatrix Potter, The Tailor of Gloucester:

     All day long while the light lasted he sewed and snippetted …

Usage notes

Particularly used in computing, for excerpts of search or query results.

Doubled ‘tt’ is incorrect per standard spelling rules, but reasonably common.

Synonyms

• (tiny part): excerpt