Laughing quietly in a disrespectful or mocking way, often at someone else's expense.
From 'snicker,' which may derive from Dutch 'snikken' or be imitative in origin, imitating the sound of suppressed laughter. The word became common in English in the 18th century.
Snickering is a universal nervous laugh—even people from completely different cultures snicker at similar moments, suggesting it might be a genuinely built-in human nervous response!
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