snicker
verb

- to laugh in a half-suppressed, indecorous or disrespectful manner

Note: "Snickers" is also the brand name of a famous nutty chocolate bar)

---

Snicker, of expressive origin, was first recorded in 1685–95

---

ANECDOTE

The famous society doctor Sir Benjamin Brodie, deeply immersed in the preparation of a medical paper, was dragged away from his work to attend a fashionable evening party.

After drinking with the gentlemen there for a while, he went to the men's room. Intending then to make his escape, he put his hat under his arm, emerged, and hurried past a number of SNICKERING guests.

In the hall he was approached by his host: 'Good Lord, Brodie, is that a usual part of your attire?' Brodie looked under his arm. Instead of his hat, he had absent-mindedly picked up the toilet-seat cover.

Brodie, Sir Benjamin Collins (1783-1862) British surgeon

---

SYNONYMS

chortle, chuckle, giggle, guffaw, hee-haw, knock, laugh at, mock, smirk, sneer, snigger, sniggle, tehee, titter

---

Practice OWAD in a conversation today, say something like:

"Some of the shareholders were heard snickering during the chairman's speech"