snoeien

Dutch[edit]

From Middle Dutch snoeyen. Further etymology is unknown, although several theories exist:

One theory suggests a common source with Old High German nōen (“to carve, to shave off”), but a lack of other cognates makes this unlikely;
In older texts, and dialectally, the word is synonymous with snoepen (“to snack, to eat something tasty”), which originally referred to picking fruits or other crops;
A link has been suggested to a group of words starting with sn-, which all refer to a "pointed protruding head or beak", such as snavel (“beak”) and snuit (“snout”);
Perhaps a merging of snijden (“to cut”) and groeien (“to grow”).

snoeien

(transitive, intransitive) to prune
Snoeien doet groeien. ― Pruning causes growth.