SNELL, a surname, from a word in the Anglo-Saxon, meaning agile, or hardy. In the Scotch, the word Snell means bitter or sharp. In the year 1688, Mr. John Snell, with a view to support Episcopacy in Scotland, bequeathed the estate of Uffton, near Leamington, Warwickshire, for the maintenance of Scottish students at Baliol college, Oxford, who had been for some years at the university of Glasgow, in which the patronage is vested.