snatch

Formssnatches, snatching, snatched

Pluralsnatches

1. 1
   verbtransitive

   To grab something and take it away quickly, often abruptly or without permission or ceremony.

   She snatched the remote out of his hand and switched off the game.

   Whenever the phone rings, I snatch it up before the second ring.

   Similargrab, seize, wrest, pluck

   Note

   The core physical sense has a surprising past: Middle English snacchen goes back to a Germanic verb meaning “to nibble, snort, chatter”, related to snout, so its ancestors worked with the mouth and nose rather than the hand. In use it pairs with words that track where the thing goes: snatch up the phone, snatch a letter out of someone's hand, snatch a stick away.

2. 2
   stealverbcolloquialtransitive

   To steal something, whether from a person or from a place.

   Somebody snatched two packages off our porch before we got home.

   Hackers can snatch your passwords if you log in carelessly on public Wi-Fi.

   Similarsteal, filch, boost, bag, appropriate

3. 3
   verbcolloquialtransitive

   To have or do something quickly in the little time available, such as a meal, some sleep, or a glance.

   Between shifts, the nurses snatch a few minutes of rest wherever they can.

   She snatched a look at her notes before walking on stage.

   Similargrab, steal, catch, sneak

   Note

   Small rations make up the usual object: a sandwich, a glimpse, some brief respite. Those little quantifiers carry the meaning, and in July 1940 the Railway Magazine described staff working night and day, snatching a few hours' sleep “as opportunity offered”. Nothing is taken from anyone, which separates this use from the stealing sense.

4. 4
   win lateverbcolloquialfigurativelytransitive

   To take a victory at the very last moment, just before a game or contest ends.

   A three-pointer at the buzzer let the visitors snatch victory from the home team.

   Her rival snatched the championship on the very last lap of the season.

   Similarsteal, clinch, grab, seize

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A quick act of grabbing or catching something, such as a ball in flight.

   The shortstop made a diving snatch to rob the batter of a hit.

   He took the keys off the hook with a snatch and was out the door.

   Similargrab, catch

6. 6
   bit of soundnouncountable

   A brief fragment of sound, usually of music or conversation.

   Snatches of conversation drifted up from the café terrace below.

   Every few minutes the car radio picked up a snatch of a ballgame before the static came back.

   Similarsnippet, fragment, scrap, bit

   Note

   A fragment of sound can be caught or made: you may overhear a snatch of Mozart through an open window, or hum one yourself, as the stranger in Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man (1857) hums “an opera snatch.” The usual pattern takes of: a snatch of song, snatches of conversation. Melville's noun-first order is the less common shape.

7. 7
   try to grabverbintransitive

   To make a sudden grab or reach for something, trying to seize it.

   As she slipped, she snatched at a branch, but it broke off in her hand.

   Panicking swimmers will snatch at anything within reach, even their rescuers.

   Similargrab

   Note

   The preposition at does the work here, turning the grab into a try. Snatch a rope and you have it; snatch at a rope and you may come away with nothing. With at, the verb takes no direct object, and its synonym grab behaves the same way: grab at and snatch at describe the reach, not the catch. In the plain physical grab, the hand closes on its target.

8. 8
   short timenouncountable

   A brief period of time.

   New parents learn to sleep in snatches, an hour here and twenty minutes there.

   In a brief snatch of time between meetings, she called home.

   Similarspell, burst, moment

   Note

   Its usual home is the plural phrase in snatches, which describes something broken into pieces rather than merely short. In Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future (2020), a character has slept about three hours, in snatches: a total pieced together from interruptions. The verb paints the same broken day from the sleeper's side in its squeezed-in-time sense.

9. 9
   weightliftingnouncountable

   An event in competitive weightlifting in which the lifter raises a barbell from the platform to locked arms overhead in one smooth, continuous movement.

   He missed his opening attempt in the snatch but made the next two.

   Before adding weight, the coach had us practice the snatch with an empty bar.

   Note

   Of the two competition lifts, this is the one that lives up to the verb's quick grab: one pull, and the bar is overhead. Its partner, the clean and jerk, reaches the same locked-out position in separate stages, and a lifter's best lift in each counts toward the total. The word names the single lift as well as the event, so lifters speak of making or missing a snatch.

10. 10
    private partsnounslangvulgarcountable

    A vulgar word for the vulva, the external female genitals.

    He kept making crude remarks about women's snatches until the bartender threw him out.

    She took the soccer ball straight to the snatch and doubled over, swearing.

    Similarcunt, twat

    Note

    Crude talk is its only home; it has no place in a doctor's office or in polite company, where vulva is the word to use. It keeps company with twat and cunt, and turns up in men's rough banter about women, in frank popular fiction such as Jackie Collins's Lucky (1985), and in bawdy jokes a woman makes about herself. Learners should handle it with the same caution as those two.

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