snatch
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: aeronautics
aerospace
aviation
business
engineering
hobbies
lifestyle
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sports
weightlifting
Etymology: From Middle English snacchen, snecchen (“to snap; seize”), from Old English *snæċċan, *sneċċan, from Proto-West Germanic *snakkjan, from Proto-Germanic *snakjaną (“to whiff, sniff, catch wind of; to taste-test, nibble”), related to Proto-Germanic *snakōną (“to breathe, blow, sigh”) and *snakkōną (“to blather, jabber, chatter”).
Cognate with Middle Dutch snacken (“to snap [of a dog]”), Norwegian Nynorsk snaka (“to snatch [of animals]”). Related also to Dutch snakken (“to sob, pant, long for”), Low German snacken (“to chatter”), German schnacken (“to chat”), Danish snakke (“to chat”) and Norwegian snakke (“to chat”). Related to snack.
Inflected forms:
form: snatches
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: snatching
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: snatched
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: snatched
pos: verb
tags: past
form: snatches
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: To grasp and remove quickly.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: He snatched up the phone.
She snatched the letter out of the secretary's hand.
Snatch me to heaven.
"How many times have I told you?" she cried, and seized him and snatched his stick away from him.
gloss: To attempt to seize something suddenly.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: to snatch at a rope
gloss: To take or seize hastily, abruptly, or without permission or ceremony.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: to snatch a kiss
1731-1735, Alexander Pope, Moral Essays
when half our knowledge we must snatch, not take
gloss: To steal.
pos: verb
tags: informal
transitive
examples: Someone has just snatched my purse!
Laura snatches coins from inside a truck to make a telephone call, scrounges shoes and clothes for them at a municipal beach, schemes to get a room key so she and Howie can sleep overnight in the Starlight Motel, steals a Jeepster from a deputy sheriff who's trying to arrest them.
gloss: To take (a victory) at the last moment.
pos: verb
tags: broadly
figuratively
informal
transitive
examples: 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.
gloss: To do something quickly in the limited time available.
pos: verb
tags: informal
transitive
examples: He snatched a sandwich before catching the train.
He snatched a glimpse of her while her mother had her back turned.
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.
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.
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.
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."
gloss: A quick grab or catch.
pos: noun
examples: The leftfielder makes a nice snatch to end the inning.
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; […]
gloss: A short period.
pos: noun
examples: At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
Frank looked at the screens dully. He had slept about three hours, in snatches.
gloss: A competitive weightlifting event in which a barbell is lifted from the platform to locked arms overhead in a smooth continuous movement.
pos: noun
gloss: A piece of some sound, usually music or conversation.
pos: noun
examples: I heard a snatch of Mozart as I passed the open window.
But, purgatory as the place would appear, the stranger advances into it; and, like Orpheus in his gay descent to Tartarus, lightly hums to himself an opera snatch.
gloss: The vulva.
pos: noun
tags: slang
vulgar
examples: 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?
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.
Dan: Hey, Ani, I found my keys! They were in my pocket.
Ani: That's great, Dan! Of course, I've never lost mine.
Dan: Really? Where do you keep yours?
Ani: In my snatch!
“[…]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?”
gloss: Rapid, uncommanded jerking or oscillation of the ailerons of some aircraft at high Mach numbers, resulting from shock wave formation at transonic speeds.
pos: noun
examples: 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.
gloss: A brief period of exertion.
pos: noun
tags: dated
gloss: A catching of the voice.
pos: noun
tags: dated
gloss: A hasty snack; a bite to eat.
pos: noun
tags: dated
gloss: A quibble.
pos: noun
tags: dated
Derived words: baby snatching
cap snatching
chain-snatch
cradle-snatch
foresnatch
have one's wig snatched
outsnatch
purse snatcher
resnatch
snatchable
snatch and grab
snatch and run
snatchback
snatch defeat from the jaws of victory
snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory
snatcher
snatchproof
snatch someone's edges
snatch the pebble
snatch victory from the jaws of defeat
snatchy
unsnatch
upsnatch
snatch block
snatchless
snatch loading
snatch squad
Translations:
lang: Bulgarian
word: сграбчвам
roman: sgrabčvam
lang: Czech
word: ukrást
lang: Czech
word: sebrat
lang: Czech
word: vytrhnout
lang: Czech
word: vyrvat
lang: Galician
word: ripar
lang: Ancient Greek
word: ἁρπάζω
roman: harpázō
lang: Hungarian
word: kitép
lang: Hungarian
word: kiragad
lang: Indonesian
word: rebut
lang: Indonesian
word: kedut
lang: Irish
word: sciob
lang: Latin
word: rapiō
lang: Latin
word: surpō
lang: Māori
word: kōhaki
lang: Māori
word: kōwhaki
lang: Middle English
word: grippen
lang: Middle English
word: gripen
lang: Occitan
word: agantar
lang: Occitan
word: sasir
lang: Swedish
word: roffa åt