nab
/næb/
nab verb: to seize, arrest or take into custody (a criminal or fugitive).
Verb
nab (third-person singular simple present nabs, present participle nabbing, simple past and past participle nabbed)
- To seize, arrest or take into custody (a criminal or fugitive).
- As I was going out of the door, a fellow detective came hurriedly in. "Nabbed them," cried he.1887, Anna Katharine Green, 7 to 12, A Detective Story, G. P. Putnam's Sons, page 2
- Their target: a drug kingpin who reportedly keeps millions of dollars in his fortress of a compound. Pope has been working for years to nab this baddie, and sincerely wants to stop his reign of terror,)2019 July 3, Mike D'Angelo, “Oscar Isaac and Ben Affleck blunder through a heavy heist in J.C. Chandor’s Triple Frontier”, in AV Club, archived from the original on 21 Nov 2019
- To grab or snatch something.
- To steal or copy another user's post.
Noun
nab (plural nabs)
- The summit of a hill.
- At Clayton point and other nabs to the south of Scarborough.1828, George Young, A Geological Survey of the Yorkshire Coast
- ‘I thought I heard my father,’ he gasped, glancing up to the frowning nab above us. ‘You are sure nobody spoke?’1847, Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
- The cock of a gunlock.
- The Toe, or Nab of the Bolt, which rises[…]above the Straight on the Top of the Bolt: The Office of this Nab, is to receive the Bottom of the Bit of the Key, when in turning it about, it shoots the Bolt backward or forwards.1677–1683, Joseph Moxon, “(please specify the page)”, in Mechanick Exercises, or The Doctrine of Handy-Works, […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] Joseph Moxon, published...
- The keeper, or box into which the lock is shot.
- the Bottom of the Bit may fall almost to the Bottom of the Nab , and shoot the Bolt back1703, Joseph Moxon, Mechanick Exercises
Proper noun capitalized: NAB
NAB
- Initialism of National Australia Bank.
- Initialism of National Association of Broadcasters.
- Abbreviation of National Accountability Bureau.
Examples of nab in a sentence
- Vigilantes may have the power to nab criminals, but they lack the authority.
- He purchased a pack of nabs from the vending machine.
- This Canadian fraudmeister moved to Europe after being nabbed in a mining-stock scam in Ontario.
Synonyms of nab
Forms of nab
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | nabs |
| present participle | nabbing |
| past participle | nabbed |
| past | nabbed |
| alternative form | knab |
| Noun | |
| plural | nabs |
Origin of nab
From dialectal nap (“to seize, lay hold of”), probably of North Germanic origin, from Old Swedish nappa (“to pluck, pinch”). Related to Danish nappe (“to tweak, snatch at, catch, seize”), Swedish nappa (“to take, grab, pinch”), Norwegian Bokmål nappe (“to grab, snatch, pluck, yank”).
Compare knap, knop, knob.
Words formed from nab
Words that rhyme with nab
Questions about nab
- What does nab mean?
- Nab means to seize, arrest or take into custody (a criminal or fugitive).
- What part of speech is nab?
- Nab can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce nab?
- Nab is pronounced /næb/.
- What is the past tense of nab?
- The past tense of nab is nabbed.
Words near nab in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: nab (page history and authors); NAB (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-nab.ogg.
Cite this entry: “nab.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nab. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.