Snarky means sharply and sarcastically critical. A snarky comment, snarky replies, getting snarky.
It is a small unkindness rather than a large one — snark is a tone rather than an argument, and it thrives online because it costs nothing and gets attention. The word meant merely irritable in 1906 and took its current sense in the late 1990s. Note snark, both noun and verb.
1adjectivesnarkySharply and sarcastically critical.
“She made a snarky comment about my new haircut.”
snarky is a quality of sarcasm.
Also accepted in games: caustic
Snark plus -y, from a word meaning to snort, itself imitative. The sarcastic sense spread in the late 1990s.
Built from
From snark + -y; 1906, as “irritable”, from snark (“to snort”), by onomatopoeia (1866). Compare Low German snarken (“to snore”), frr snarke, Swedish snarka. In the sense “sarcastic” popularized in the late 1990s.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire