Small companies of shooters ( Schützenfähnlein) from the German states and Swiss cantons would form teams of Scharfschützen for such popular competitions proudly carrying flags depicting a crossbow on one side and a target musket on the other. The word alludes to good marksmanship, itself descendent of the shooting competitions ( Schützenfeste) that took place throughout the year in Munich in the 15th century. The older term " sharpshooter" comes from the calque of German word Scharfschütze, in use by 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. Accomplishing such an shot was regarded as exceptional, and inevitably during the late 18th century, the term "snipe shooting" was simplified to "sniping". In the 18th century, letters sent home by English officers in India referred to a day's rough shooting as "going sniping", as it took a skilled flintlock sportsman a lot of patience and endurance to wing-shoot a snipe in flight. Snipe hunters therefore needed to be stealthy in addition to being good trackers and marksmen. The name "sniper" comes from the verb "to snipe", which originated in the 1770s among soldiers in British India in reference to shooting snipes, a wader that was considered an extremely challenging game bird for hunters due to its alertness, camouflaging color and erratic flight behavior.
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