Mrs. hale. i’d hate to have men coming into my kitchen, snooping around and criticizing. which word has a meaning similar to “snooping” as it is used in this excerpt? looking peering intruding searching

Intruding

The overall tone of Mrs. Hale's dialogue is negative. She does not want the men in her kitchen. This is one way which intruding is the answer because she sees the men as intruders. There is nothing to indicate the men are searching for something. Peering has the negative connotation; however, peering usually indicates the person is not directly looking at something or rather trying to secretly look. Substituting the word "looking" is not enough. It doesn't contain the negative connotation that the rest of Mrs. Hale's dialogue indicates.

The correct answer would be option C: "intruding", this is due to the fact that snooping is like prying into someone's life without invitation, and intruding is looking intensely at something without someone's explicit invitation with the purpose of criticizing, not just simple curiosity which would be looking or with a non harmful purpose which would be searching.