snickering

Two of the men coughed to hide their snickering.

I heard some light snickering in the background, but pushed ahead.

I wasn’t the only one: A small contingency of the audience at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater started snickering and laughing before he had even fully stepped onstage.

I was checking out my stuff when I heard Joey snickering.

But snickering and irreverence aside, the Milan native was also a towering figure — both influential and polarizing — who reshaped the Italian media and political landscape in his image.