The word alludes to good marksmanship, itself descendent of the shooting competitions ( Schützenfeste) which took place throughout the year in Munich in the 15th century.
The older term "sharpshooter" comes from the calque of German Scharfschütze, in use in British newspapers as early as 1801. The term "sniper" was first attested militarily in 1824, becoming common place in the First World War. This evolved to the agent noun "sniper", first appearing by the 1820s. Such an accomplished shot was regarded as above average and inevitably during the 18th century the term "snipe shooting" was simplified to "sniping". It took a skilled sportsman with a flintlock gun to bring down a snipe in flight. In the 18th century letters sent home by English officers in India referred to a day's rough shooting as "going sniping". Snipe hunters therefore needed to be stealthy in addition to being good trackers and marksmen. The name "Sniper" comes from the verb "to snipe", that originated in the 1770s among soldiers in British India in reference to shooting snipes, which was considered an extremely challenging game bird for hunters due to its alertness, camouflaging color and erratic flight behavior.
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