the dog snarked up the cookie

[jacdac]

After an hour or so I stopped to untie the good-sized bundle of food Dora had packed for me. There were molasses cookies among the other goodies. No chocolate in those, so I gave one to Radar, who snarked it up. There were also three long glass jars wrapped in clean rags.
source: Fairy Tale by Stephen King

I guess snarked it up is a king-ism for wolfed it down/gobbled it up, right?

Thank you.

 

[anthox]

I guess snarked it up is a king-ism for wolfed it down/gobbled it up, right?

Sounds like it. I've never heard such a term before, but the context makes it clear.

 

[JulianStuart]

Ayup!

(Afterthought - good guess. If the dog had eaten it and then "snarked it up" we could guess that meaning, too )

 

[owlman5]

I had never heard snark before, but the context made it clear to me that it was King's version of snarf, which is a verb that I hear every now and then*. Here is a definition for snarf from our dictionary:

snarf/snɑːf/ vb

1. informal to eat or drink greedily

*Usually with up or down: She said she was hungry, so I bought her a meal and watched her snarf it up.

 

[JulianStuart]

I had never heard snark before, but the context made it clear to me that it was King's version of snarf, which is a verb that I hear every now and then. Here is a definition for snarf from our dictionary:

snarf/snɑːf/ vb

1. informal to eat or drink greedily

Not to mention

scarf3 (skärf ), v.t., v.i. [Slang.]

1. Slang Terms to eat, esp. voraciously (often fol. by down or up):to scarf down junk food.

 

[anthox]

If the dog had eaten it and then "snarked it up" we could guess that meaning, too

I feel like "to snark up" more naturally lends itself to that meaning, in fact.

 

[Edinburgher]

King probably got it from reading Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark.

 

[entangledbank]

King probably got it from whatever illegal recreational nibbles he takes before putting pen to paper. He just likes making up slightly odd things.

 

[anthox]

King probably got it from whatever illegal recreational nibbles he takes before putting pen to paper. He just likes making up slightly odd things.

If indeed he partakes in such recreational nibbles, they happen to be legal in his home state.

 

[kentix]

You can hark something up, which means it leaves in the same direction it came.

All the versions are likely based on onomatopoeia.