Chiefly Sc. and north. dial. Also 5 snekk-, 9 snek. [f. SNECK sb.1]
1. trans. To latch (a door or gate); to close or fasten with or by means of a sneck.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 284/2. Latchyn, or snekkyn, pessulo.
1560. Maitl. Club Misc., III. 239. The deponar … fand the dur snecked and vnbarred and sche barred the dur.
1674. Ray, N. C. Words, 43. Snock [1691 Sneck] the door: latch the door.
1768. Ross, Helenore, 36. Sae out she slips, an’ snecks the door behind.
1787–. in dial. glossaries and texts (Sc., N. Cy., Notts., Linc., Warw., etc.).
1868. G. Macdonald, R. Falconer, I. 175. Sneck the door, laddie.
1889. Carlisle Patriot, 1 March (E.D.D.). If the gate had been snecked, the cattle could not have got on the line.
b. To lock or shut up. In quot. fig.
1816. Scott, Antiq., xxix. The secrets of grit folk … are just like the wild beasts that are shut up in cages. Keep them hard and fast snecked up, and it’s a’ very weel.
c. intr. Of a door or gate: To latch, shut.
1871. Mrs. Ewing, Brownies, etc. 107. The gate opened for them and snecked after them.
1889. Tennyson, Owd Roa, xxxii. I’d clear forgot … thy chaumber door wouldn’t sneck.
2. trans. (See quot. 1808.) Sc.
1792. Stat. Acc. Scotl., II. 534. Farm-houses and Cottages.—… A very few of them have been stob-thatched, or covered with a deep coat of straw,—and snecked or harled with lime.
1808. Jamieson, To sneck with lime, to make indentations in a wall, filling the blanks with lime; or, in building, to insert a small quantity between the stones in the outer side.
