snippet

Etymology

From snip + -et. Compare snippock.

noun

1. A small part of something, such as a song or fabric; sample.
   From the snippet I heard of their rehearsal, they sound pretty good.
   He cut his coats without waste; according to his embroidered cloth, they were very small ends and snippets that lay about upon the table […] 1902, Beatrix Potter, The Tailor of Gloucester:
   On another occasion a "Schools" class, No. 30911 Dover, with a load of eight bogies on the same train was badly delayed by signals all the way, but made very determined attempts to pick up time whenever possible. This resulted in a sustained speed of 50 m.p.h. up Sole Street bank and several snippets in the "eighties". 1959 April, P. Ransome-Wallis, “The Southern in Trouble on the Kent Coast”, in Trains Illustrated, London: Ian Allan Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 216
   Miss Honey smiled. It was extraordinary, she told herself, how this little snippet of a girl seemed suddenly to be taking charge of her problems, and with such authority, too. 1988, Roald Dahl, Matilda
2. (computing) A text file containing a relatively small amount of code, useless by itself, along with instructions for inserting that code into a larger codebase.

verb

1. (transitive, often computing) To produce a snippet (small part) of; to excerpt.
   We snippeted the blog posts for display on the home page.
2. To make small cuts, to snip, particularly with scissors.
   All day long while the light lasted he sewed and snippetted […] 1902, Beatrix Potter, The Tailor of Gloucester: