techn. [Possibly the same word as prec.: cf. SNEIPE v.]
1. trans. To cause or make to taper; spec. in Shipbuilding (see quot. 1846).
(a) 1794. Rigging & Seamanship, 10. Snaping, reducing the ends of any piece to a less substance. Ibid., 24. Short fillings are remedied by snaping their ends.
1846. A. Young, Naut. Dict., 288. Snape, or Flinch, in shipbuilding, to bevel the end of any thing so as to fay upon an inclined surface. [Hence in Weale, Smyth, etc.]
1869. Sir E. J. Reed, Shipbuild., xiii. 144. The butts of the plates were each snaped away with the hammer.
(b) 1841. R. W. Hamilton, Nugæ Lit., 354. Leaves, by a sudden blight, are snaped; the handle of a knife is snaped.
1888. Addy, Sheffield Gloss., s.v., A blacksmith is said to snape a piece of iron to a point when by hammering or some other process he tapers it off to a point.
2. intr. To taper (off).
1794. Rigging & Seamanship, 24. The lower end of the long filling snapes.
1874. Thearle, Naval Archit., 57. The deck plank snapes off to a sliver edge.
Hence Snaped ppl. a. (See quot.)
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., 2229/1. Snaped Timber.… timber cut beveling, so that one face is narrower than the other.
