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\ ˈsnüp 
\
\snooped; snooping; snoops
Definition of snoop
(Entry 1 of 2)
: to look or pry especially in a sneaking or meddlesome manner
snoop
nounDefinition of snoop (Entry 2 of 2)
: one that snoops
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Synonyms for snoop
Synonyms: Verb
- butt in,
- interfere,
- interlope,
- intermeddle,
- intrude,
- meddle,
- mess,
- muck (about or around),
- nose,
- obtrude,
- poke,
- pry
Examples of snoop in a Sentence
Verb
She locks up her diary to keep her brother from snooping.
Government agencies have been snooping on them for years.
She doesn't want reporters snooping into her personal life. Noun
No, I didn't read your e-mail. I'm no snoop.
We had a snoop around their apartment.
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Recent Examples on the Web: Verb In July, the EU's top court ruled that the bloc's own Privacy Shield program with the U.S. was invalid because the American government can snoop on people's data.
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Jamey Keaten, Star Tribune, "Swiss official airs concerns about data privacy in US," 8 Sep. 2020 The sudden demand seemed to catch Zoom off guard initially, leaving its service vulnerable to hackers and mischief makers who exploited security weaknesses to barge into or snoop on meetings.
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CBS News, "Zoom's earnings soar nearly 3300% in second quarter," 1 Sep. 2020 The sudden demand seemed to catch Zoom off guard initially, leaving its service vulnerable to hackers and mischief makers who exploited security weaknesses to barge into or snoop on meetings.
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Michael Liedtke, chicagotribune.com, "You know who’s had a good pandemic quarantine? Zoom.," 1 Sep. 2020 The weaknesses allowed attackers to snoop on and sometimes tamper with data received by millions of users thousands of miles away.
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Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, "Insecure satellite Internet is threatening ship and plane safety," 5 Aug. 2020 That raised concerns the Chinese government might be able to snoop on the video calls.
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Fortune, "Zoom closed the accounts of U.S. based Chinese pro-democracy activists, citing “local laws”," 11 June 2020 German spies would eventually get cold feet about the CIA’s enthusiasm for snooping on allies.
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The Economist, "Sharing intelligence Maximator, a European spy pact to rival the Five Eyes, comes to light," 26 May 2020 But snooping around the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay isn’t what allowed us to break the story.
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Eric Branch, SFChronicle.com, "Untold stories: Reporting Reuben Foster’s arrest — and avoiding one, too," 17 May 2020 Its glittering ‘eyes’ were the glass retroreflector beads destined to snoop on unsuspecting targets.
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David Hambling, Popular Mechanics, "In the 1970s, the CIA Created a Robot Dragonfly Spy. Now We Know How It Works.," 18 Feb. 2020 Recent Examples on the Web: Noun The system involves every phone constantly broadcasting Bluetooth codes, but limits any snoop's ability to eavesdrop on those codes to track a person's movements by switching up the numbers every 10 or 15 minutes.
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Andy Greenberg, Wired, "Does Covid-19 Contact Tracing Pose a Privacy Risk? Your Questions, Answered," 17 Apr. 2020 Today, the app’s 1.6 billion users can talk, text, and video chat without fear of snoops.
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Popsci Staff, Popular Science, "The best tech of the last decade," 27 Dec. 2019 Tap or click for 5 quick and easy ways to stop snoops in their tracks.
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Kim Komando, USA TODAY, "5 digital signs that your significant other is cheating," 31 Oct. 2019 But Betty, junior FBI agent, snoops in Donna’s room and finds Chipping’s Quill & Skull tie pin.
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Jessica Macleish, Teen Vogue, "The “Riverdale” Thanksgiving Brought All the Feels — and an Exploding Turkey," 21 Nov. 2019 In some cases, a snoop could use free software programs — or just a typical web browser — to view the images and private data, an investigation by ProPublica and the German broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk found.
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Jack Gillum, ProPublica, "Millions of Americans’ Medical Images and Data Are Available on the Internet. Anyone Can Take a Peek.," 17 Sep. 2012 Hannah and her fellow canine snoops went through a ten-week training course to learn to identify a compound called triphenylphosphine oxide.
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Patricia Marx, The New Yorker, "Sit, Stay, Fight Cybercrime," 4 Nov. 2019 As Nohl noted, snoops have long had a variety of ways to track the location of many cellular devices.
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Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, "Hackers are exploiting a platform-agnostic flaw to track mobile phone locations," 12 Sep. 2019 Lapena’s menacing suspense thriller traces the consequences — including murder — when a teenager in suburban New York breaks into his neighbors’ homes and snoops through the secrets on their computers.
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New York Times, "New & Noteworthy Audiobooks, From Ernest Hemingway to the Baby-Sitters Club," 13 Aug. 2019
See MoreThese example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'snoop.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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More Definitions for snoop
snoop
verbEnglish Language Learners Definition of snoop
(Entry 1 of 2)
informal : to look for private information about someone or something
snoop
nounEnglish Language Learners Definition of snoop (Entry 2 of 2)
informal
: someone who looks for private information about someone or something : someone who snoops
: a secret look around a place
See the full definition for snoop in the English Language Learners Dictionary
snoop
verb\ ˈsnüp \
\snooped; snooping
Kids Definition of snoop
(Entry 1 of 2)
: to look or search especially in a sneaking or nosy way
snoop
nounKids Definition of snoop (Entry 2 of 2)
: a person who looks or searches in a sneaky or nosy way
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Time Traveler for snoop
The first known use of snoop was in 1832
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