snigger

• snicker

British variant pronunciation and spelling of snicker[1]. This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈsnɪɡɚ/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈsnɪɡə(ɹ)/
• Rhymes: -ɪɡə(ɹ)

• Audio (UK)

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snigger (plural sniggers)

1. A partly suppressed or broken laugh.
   • 1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 255:

     Here the unfeeling Toad broke into a snigger, and then pulled himself together and tried to look particularly solemn.

2. A sly or snide laugh.

snigger (third-person singular simple present sniggers, present participle sniggering, simple past and past participle sniggered)

1. (intransitive) To emit a snigger.
   • 1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, page 22:

     […] presently the Mole's spirits revived again, and he was even able to give some straight back-talk to a couple of moorhens who were sniggering to each other about his bedraggled appearance.

   • 1922, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in The Cuckoo in the Nest‎:

     Peter, after the manner of man at the breakfast table, had allowed half his kedgeree to get cold and was sniggering over a letter. Sophia looked at him sharply. The only letter she had received was from her mother. Sophia's mother was not a humourist.

• See also Thesaurus:laugh

• gingers, niggers, serging