Past tense of sneak; to move quietly and secretly, trying not to be noticed.
From dialectal English 'sneak,' possibly from Old English 'snican' (to creep). The word emerged in the 16th-17th centuries and originally had a more derogatory sense implying dishonesty.
The ongoing debate between 'snuck' and 'sneaked' is a perfect example of language evolution in real-time—'snuck' is newer (emerged 1880s-1900s) and spreads by analogy to regular verb patterns, while 'sneaked' follows traditional rules, with neither being objectively 'wrong.'
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