Sniper

A sniper is a military/paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with high-precision rifles and high-magnification optics, and often also serve as scouts/observers feeding tactical information back to their units or command headquarters. In addition to long-range and high-grade marksmanship, military snipers are trained in a variety of special operation techniques: detection, stalking, target range estimation methods, camouflage, tracking, bushcraft, field craft, infiltration, special reconnaissance and observation, surveillance and target acquisition. Snipers need to have complete control of their bodies and senses in order to be effective. They also need to have the skill set to use data from their scope and monitors to adjust their aim to hit targets that are extremely far away. In training, snipers are given charts that they're drilled on to ensure they can make last-minute calculations when they are in the field. 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. Snipe hunters therefore needed to be stealthy in addition to being good trackers and marksmen. 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. Accomplishing such a shot was regarded as exceptional, and inevitably during the late 18th century, the term snipe shooting was simplified to sniping. This evolved to the agent noun sniper, first appearing by the 1820s. The term sniper was first attested militarily in 1824, becoming common place in the First World War.