Snigglers

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. People who giggle in a quiet, mocking way ; those who fish for eels by hooking them with a baited line dragged through the mud
2. Individuals who chuckle furtively at others, often with contempt ; anglers who hook eels by dragging a baited line along the riverbed
3. Those who snicker in a stifled, derisive manner ; fishermen who take eels by snagging them with a weighted, baited hook

Etymology: Sniggler ends in one of English's oldest working suffixes. The "-er" was inherited through Old English "-ere," which descends from Proto-West Germanic "-ārī" and further back to a Proto-Germanic ending. Its Latin source, "-arius," also reached English by another route: it passed into Old French as "-ier" and then into Middle English as "-er." So the same ending arrived in English twice, once from the Germanic side and once from Latin through French, and the two merged into the single form seen today. Sniggle is the base to which this ending was attached, and "snigglers" is simply the plural of that noun.

Synonyms: poacher