Snage

Part of speech: verb, noun

Definitions

1. To trim the branches or knots from a felled tree or log, leaving a clean trunk
2. To lop off the limbs and projecting stubs from timber so that it can be hauled or sawn
3. To clear a cut log of its side shoots and rough protrusions by chopping them away

Etymology: "Snage" is an English verb and noun, now rare, meaning to trim branches or lop off the lower limbs of a tree. Its roots lie in Old Norse "snaga," which denoted a stripped-down or cut-off piece of wood, and the word reached English through the Scandinavian-speaking settlers of the northern and eastern Danelaw. Related forms in Scandinavian languages, such as Norwegian dialect "snaga," preserve the same sense of a stub or trimmed branch. The word survives mainly in dialect and forestry usage, where it can name both the act of pruning a tree and the stub left behind. Its quiet persistence in regional English is a useful reminder that much of the country's vocabulary for rural work came from Norse speakers who had their own words for the same tasks.