snatch
English
Etymology
From Middle English snacchen, snecchen, from Old English snæċċan, sneċċan, from Proto-Germanic *snakkijaną, *snakkōną (“to nibble, snort, chatter”); see *snūtaz (“snout”).
Cognate with Dutch snakken (“to sob, pant, long for”), Low German snacken (“to chatter”), German schnacken (“to chat”), Norwegian snakke (“to chat”). Related to snack.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /snæt͡ʃ/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -ætʃ
Verb
snatch (third-person singular simple present snatches, present participle snatching, simple past and past participle snatched)
- (transitive) To grasp and remove quickly.
- He snatched up the phone.
- She snatched the letter out of the secretary's hand.
- 1730, James Thomson, “Autumn”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, OCLC 642619686:
- Snatch me to heaven.
- 1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter 2, in Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, OCLC 19736994; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, OCLC 258624721:
- "How many times have I told you?" she cried, and seized him and snatched his stick away from him.
- (intransitive) To attempt to seize something suddenly.
- Synonym: grab
- to snatch at a rope
- (transitive) To take or seize hastily, abruptly, or without permission or ceremony.
- to snatch a kiss
- 1731-1735, Alexander Pope, Moral Essays
- when half our knowledge we must snatch, not take
- (transitive, informal) To steal.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:steal
- Someone has just snatched my purse!
- (transitive, informal, figurative, by extension) To take (a victory) at the last moment.
- 2012 May 13, Alistair Magowan, “Sunderland 0-1 Man Utd”, in BBC Sport:
- But, with United fans in celebratory mood as it appeared their team might snatch glory, they faced an anxious wait as City equalised in stoppage time.
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- (transitive, informal) To do something quickly in the limited time available.
- He snatched a sandwich before catching the train.
- He snatched a glimpse of her while her mother had her back turned.
- 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 4293071:
- It was a joy to snatch some brief respite, and find himself in the rectory drawing–room. Listening here was as pleasant as talking; just to watch was pleasant. The young priests who lived here wore cassocks and birettas; their faces were fine and mild, yet really strong, like the rector's face; and in their intercourse with him and his wife they seemed to be brothers.
- 1940 July, “Notes and News: A Magnificent Transport Achievement”, in Railway Magazine, page 419:
- No department of the Southern Railway escaped some share of the work involved, and the outdoor traffic and locomotive staffs in particular were engaged literally night and day, snatching a few hours' sleep as opportunity offered, until the task was completed.
- 2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian:
- You might now reason that even a 12-minute walk to the store to buy a can of beans is too great an expenditure of time, and that the fee paid for one-hour delivery is a fair price to snatch those minutes back into your life.
- 2022 December 14, David Turner, “The Edwardian Christmas getaway...”, in RAIL, number 972, page 35:
- In 1914, the Hendon and Finchley Times published a piece titled 'People who have no Christmas'. An engine-driver's comment was this: "For many years now I have never enjoyed a real Christmas. My engine has claimed me on this day, and my only regret is that I am not attached to a slow goods train, so that I could snatch time to eat some plum-pudding."
Derived terms
- purse snatcher
- snatch and run
- snatcher
- upsnatch
Translations
to grasp quickly
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to grab something without permissions or by force
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to grasp and remove
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to steal
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to snatch a victory
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to do quickly
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Noun
snatch (plural snatches)
- A quick grab or catch.
- The leftfielder makes a nice snatch to end the inning.
- 1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard:
- And he […] glared on the cold pistols that hung before him—ready for anything. And he took down one with a snatch and weighed it in his hand, and fell to thinking again; […]
- A short period.
- 2020, Kim Stanley Robinson, chapter 1, in The Ministry for the Future, Little, Brown Book Group, →ISBN:
- Frank looked at the screens dully. He had slept about three hours, in snatches.
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- (weightlifting) A competitive weightlifting event in which a barbell is lifted from the platform to locked arms overhead in a smooth continuous movement.
- A piece of some sound, usually music or conversation.
- I heard a snatch of Mozart as I passed the open window.
- (vulgar slang) The vulva. [from 18th c.][1]
- Synonyms: cunt, twat
- 1962, Douglas Woolf, Wall to Wall, Grove Press, page 83,
- Claude, is it true what they say about Olovia? Of course she’s getting a little old for us—what about Marilyum, did you try her snatch?
- 1985, Jackie Collins, Lucky, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 150:
- Roughly Santino ripped the sheet from the bed, exposing all of her. She had blond hair on her snatch, which drove him crazy. He was partial to blondes.
- 2008, Jim Craig, North to Disaster, Bushak Press, →ISBN, page 178:
- “ […] You want me to ask Brandy to let you paint her naked body with all this gooey stuff to make a mold of her snatch?”
- (aviation) Rapid, uncommanded jerking or oscillation of the ailerons of some aircraft at high Mach numbers, resulting from shock wave formation at transonic speeds.
- 1982, National Transportation Safety Board, quoting Federal Aviation Administration, Learjet Special Certification Review interim report, 1981, quoted in Aircraft Accident Report: Sky Train Air, Inc., Gates Learjet 24, N44CJ, Felt, Oklahoma, October 1, 1981, archived from the original 21 February 2021, retrieved 20 February 2021, page 17:
- If, after the pilot notices the overspeed, he deploys the spoilers, or if aileron "snatch" rolls the airplane to an excessive bank angle, it may become impossible to recover.
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- (dated) A brief period of exertion.
- (dated) A catching of the voice.
- (dated) A hasty snack; a bite to eat.
- (dated) A quibble.
Translations
quick grab or catch
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competitive weightlifting event
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piece of sound
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vagina
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References
- Lambert, James. (2007). ‘Some Early Evidence for the Sexual Meaning of snatch.’ Comments on Etymology, Oct/Nov: 38–40.
Anagrams
- Chants, chanst, chants, stanch