Round 3617: SNARGE results

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Daniel B. Widdis

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Jan 27, 2026, 1:23:59 PM (3 days ago) Jan 27
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Efrem was half-right with his portmanteau idea, but snarge is snot + garbage, a mixture of blood, tissue, and feathers left on an aircraft after a bird strike.

I was tempting fate dealing a word about birds getting annihilated during a round where my avian-mascot sports team needed to not get annihilated.

The next deal goes to John Barrs, whose irreverent attitude attracted four votes and combined with his two points for guessing correctly, along with Debbie and Tony.  Eric Boxer knew the word in the context of Sully's famous landing on the Hudson.

Paul Keating gets the runner-up trophy, collecting 5 votes for his toady.  

All yours, John!

*** SNARGE ***

1. [Mathematics] An abstract construct in topology that associates data to the open sets of a topological space in such a way so as to make the local and global data compatible.
   Submitted by: Tim Lodge, who voted for 7 & 12 and scored 0
   No votes

2. The remains of a bird after it has collided with an airplane (in a bird strike), especially a turbine engine.
   Submitted by: Wiktionary and scored D3
   Votes from: Debbie Embler, Tony Abell, John Barrs

3. A slang expression for when fabric is too heavily starched.
   Submitted by: Debbie Embler, who voted for *2* & 4 and scored 0 + 2 = 2
   No votes

4. An expression combining hostility and embarrassment.
   Submitted by: Eric Boxer, who voted for DQ & DQ and scored 3
   Votes from: Judy Madnick, Hugo Kornelis, Debbie Embler

5. A thin wooden shim used to steady a loose drawer.
   Submitted by: Judy Madnick, who voted for 4 & 12 and scored 1
   Votes from: John Barrs

6. Mucus (portmanteau of snot and discharge)
   Submitted by: Efrem Mallach, who voted for 8 & 11 and scored 1
   Votes from: Mike Shefler

7. To lug by the ears.
   Submitted by: Shani Naylor, who did not vote and scored 2
   Votes from: Tim Lodge, Tony Abell

8. A tell-tale; a toady.
   Submitted by: Paul Keating, who voted for 8 & 11 and scored 5
   Votes from: Efrem Mallach, (Paul Keating), Nancy Shepherdson, Tim Bourne, Gail Terman, Mike Shefler

9. A pedestrian footbridge.
   Submitted by: Nancy Shepherdson, who voted for 8 & 11 and scored 0
   No votes

10. To fall asleep on a sofa or chair.
   Submitted by: Tony Abell, who voted for *2* & 7 and scored 0 + 2 = 2
   No votes

11. to complain persistently and in a peevish or irritating way.
   Submitted by: Hugo Kornelis, who voted for 4 & 12 and scored 4
   Votes from: Efrem Mallach, Paul Keating, Nancy Shepherdson, Tim Bourne

12. an attitude or expression of mocking irreverence and sarcasm.
   Submitted by: John Barrs, who voted for *2* & 5 and scored 4 + 2 = 6
   Votes from: Tim Lodge, Judy Madnick, Hugo Kornelis, Gail Terman

13. the situation in tiddlywinks when a wink lands partly on another.
   Submitted by: Tim Bourne, who voted for 8 & 11 and scored 0
   No votes

14. a strong herbal stimulant used by the Gurkhas before going into battle.
   Submitted by: Mike Shefler, who voted for 6 & 8 and scored 0
   No votes

   Submitted by: Gail Terman, who voted for 8 & 12 and scored 0
   Votes from: Shani Naylor


   Def Submitter           Votes Guess Total
    12 John Barrs              4     2     6
     8 Paul Keating            5           5
    11 Hugo Kornelis           4           4
     4 Eric Boxer              3        DQ 3
     2 Wiktionary              3          D3
     7 Shani Naylor            2           2
     3 Debbie Embler           0     2     2
    10 Tony Abell              0     2     2
     5 Judy Madnick            1           1
     6 Efrem Mallach           1           1
     1 Tim Lodge               0           0
    14 Mike Shefler            0           0
     9 Nancy Shepherdson       0           0
    13 Tim Bourne              0           0
       Gail Terman             0           0

Tim Lodge

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Jan 27, 2026, 5:00:03 PM (3 days ago) Jan 27
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I ruled out Def 2 - the bird remains - because I experienced a number of birdstrikes while flying in Blackburn Buccaneers in the 1970s, yet had never heard the word being used.  When I looked up SNARGE after voting, I discovered thst it was only submitted to Collins English Dictionary as a new word in 2012.  You know you're getting old when you can't keep up with the language!

--  Tim L

Daniel B. Widdis

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Jan 27, 2026, 8:15:55 PM (3 days ago) Jan 27
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I had guessed that you might be the first DQ.

Looks like the word took off about 2001...



On Tue, Jan 27, 2026 at 2:00 PM 'Tim Lodge' via Dixonary <dixo...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
I ruled out Def 2 - the bird remains - because I experienced a number of birdstrikes while flying in Blackburn Buccaneers in the 1970s, yet had never heard the word being used.  When I looked up SNARGE after voting, I discovered thst it was only submitted to Collins English Dictionary as a new word in 2012.  You know you're getting old when you can't keep up with the language!

--  Tim L

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stamps

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Jan 27, 2026, 8:34:59 PM (3 days ago) Jan 27
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I wonder what happened around 1860.

--Mike

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---------- Original Message -----------
From: "Daniel B. Widdis" <wid...@dixonary.net>
To: dixo...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tue, 27 Jan 2026 17:15:42 -0800
Subject: Re: [Dixonary] Re: Round 3617: SNARGE results

> I had guessed that you might be the first DQ.
>
> Looks like the word took off about 2001...
>
> https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?
content=snarge&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3
>
> On Tue, Jan 27, 2026 at 2:00?PM 'Tim Lodge' via Dixonary <
> dixo...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> > I ruled out Def 2 - the bird remains - because I experienced a number of
> > birdstrikes while flying in Blackburn Buccaneers in the 1970s, yet had
> > never heard the word being used. When I looked up SNARGE after voting, I
> > discovered thst it was only submitted to Collins English Dictionary as a
> > new word in 2012. You know you're getting old when you can't keep up with
> > the language!
> >
> > -- Tim L
> >
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "Dixonary" group.
> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> > email to dixonary+u...@googlegroups.com.
> > To view this discussion visit
> > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dixonary/c3cc63aa-7ad7-40cc-b5ea-
fa666746fad7n%40googlegroups.com
> > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dixonary/c3cc63aa-7ad7-40cc-b5ea-
fa666746fad7n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
> > .
> >
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
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> receiving emails from it, send an email to
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> To view this discussion visit
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1Tsxh2GBzc3mPB7g%40mail.gmail.com.
------- End of Original Message -------

Daniel B. Widdis

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Jan 28, 2026, 1:23:36 AM (3 days ago) Jan 28
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I wonder what happened around 1860.

There was actually an older meaning of the word... AI tells me it was in a 1925 British reference Soldier and Sailor Words and Phrases by Edward Fraser and John Gibbons, with the meaning "any ugly or unpleasant person".


Paul Keating

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Jan 28, 2026, 2:04:38 AM (3 days ago) Jan 28
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I would have expected to find a word like that in Green. But no.

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