How long has snark been used in its current sense? Wiki lists a 2001 West Wing episode, but surely it’s much older than that on the net.
Its current sense being…?
I’ve only ever heard it in relation to the Lewis Carroll poem.
Snark, n. A type of boojum.
I think the OP is asking when the term “snarky”, an adjective, came to be popularily used as a noun (as in “dispensing snark”) and verb (as in “to snark on”).
The verb form is fairly old - older than Carroll’s fictional animal:
A bunch of examples (from the hundreds and hundreds that search brought up) from the Dope:
That last quote is from 2002, as far back as I could search, and the meaning is exactly as it is today. Which is different enough from the 1882 OED cite to qualify as a new usage.
Perhaps the meaning that the OP is searching for is found in the adjectival sense:
From the OED
I think most people agree that snark is a back-formation from snarky. The Urban Dictionary page on it doesn’t (or some don’t), but you go there for examples of usage not etymology.
The question to me is whether snark itself was used regularly earlier or whether it developed as a piece of internet slang. And if the latter, when.
If you have the patience, you can of course do that by searching Google Groups. You knew that.
Unfortunately, which I’m guessing you also knew, searching for that word on Google Groups is very time consuming.
Patience, moi? I thought that’s what we had you for. 
The earliest use of “snarky” on Usenet is only from 2004.
That’s just the earliest use Google returns with an unconstrained search. Google limits results to ~100 pages. Doing a date-constrained search returns many earlier hits; here are some going back to 1985, before the Great Renaming. I’m not sure how complete Google’s archives are that far back; some early uses might be missing.
I went hunting for snarks and found this one from 1993 (bonus, it’s an Apple vs. PC flamewar!).
Exapno, I’m not sure I understand the meaning shift you’re pointing out (not that I have any better resources than the OED to answer the question anyway…). The early definitions of “irritable, grumbling, nagging, fault-finding” seem pretty close to recent usages. Are you referring to a shift toward “sarcastic”?
I think “sarcastic” is closer to the current usage. Just look at that 1993 cite you gave:
“irritable, grumbling, nagging, fault-finding” doesn’t really cover the way it’s used either there or in the quotes I gave. Sarcastic is better, as it is for the 1980s quotes:
It’s a special kind of put down sarcasm, mocking and belittling the other person.
And that’s pretty much exactly what I was looking for. Thanks. So we can pin down the change from snarky to snark to sometime between 1988 and 1993. That’s a good day’s work.
Where do you get 1988 from? I’d be surprised if it were that recent.
The search page that you linked to, labeled 1985, actually has hits ranging from 1985 to 1988.
Technically, that search of Google groups runs through 1994, but all that says is that the term snarky never went away. We have a firm cite for snark for 1993. That could be the first. Or it started some place that Google groups doesn’t cache. But it’s a good indication of the approximate time that the switch was made if we can’t find a single cite there earlier than 1993. And late 80s, early 90s seems likely.
If you think it was earlier, where do you suggest we look?
I’m not so sure about that–it seems like “snark” is occasionally used as a “laugh” sound effect. See, for instance, here, which includes the immortal line “hee hee hee hee snark snark snark.” (Also, if you like, three slightly earlier “snark snarks”: April 1993, May 1992, and August 1990, although I think these are all “laughs”).
If you’re willing to accept “snark” in verb form, here’s a slang usage guide from July 1994. For the noun form, here’s a definite useage from May 1997, one describing a person who snarks from October 1996 and a possible reference from June 1996
Good question. The Usenet archives are pretty unusual as a searchable, dated database of colloquialisms. But Usenet was pretty small in the early 80s, so it’s not such a good resource that far back. (Also, I suspect that the people who engage in OS flamewars are probably not following the leading edge of language change.) Some newspaper columns and books are written pretty colloquially. I tried an Amazon search-inside-books but didn’t find anything very early (but they have mostly scanned their newest books, so that’s not too surprising). I don’t know of any other online searchable book-text databases covering newer books. Does a NEXIS search find anything interesting?
Good point. I hadn’t read it that way, but that is a reasonable interpretation. I like your finds better. They also are discussing the meaning of the word, maybe indicating that it’s a relatively new (or newly repopularized) usage.
I can’t hear the word snark without thinking of the television show Homicide: Life on the Street and this exchange <quoted from imdb>
Det. Mike Kellerman: You sure you want me with you?
Det. Tim Bayliss: Yeah, sure, why not?
Det. Mike Kellerman: I don’t know, uh, last time we worked together you were kind of snarky.
Det. Tim Bayliss: Snarky?
Det. Mike Kellerman: Yeah, snarky, you know, from the ancient Greek, meaning butt head.
Hey–it even gives an etymology!
Not sure off the top of my head what season that was, actually. Early nineties? It was a popular worg on a newsgroup I frequented about the show at that time.
You know, or WORD.
If you’re picky.
Or snarky.