Word.ws English Dictionary

snapping up

snapping up is the present participle and gerund of snap up.

Meaning of snap up

Verb

snap up (third-person singular simple present snaps up, present participle snapping up, simple past and past participle snapped up)

  1. (colloquial, transitive) To buy or acquire quickly, usually because the item is a bargain or in short supply or something one has been searching for.
    • I dashed into the mall; bought a gift; raced to the card store, snapped up a two-fer gift-bag special and was back in my car in 26 minutes. I could medal in power shopping.2004 October 29, Carol McAlice Currie, “Unposted laws make downtown seem unwelcoming”, in Statesman Journal, volume 152, number 214, Salem, OR, page 1C
  2. (archaic, colloquial, transitive) To snap at (a person); to speak harshly to.
    • [H]e saw Jonathan a horse-back, and, asking him how he did, Jonathan d—d him, and bid him not trouble him with impertinent questions; therefore the tradesman desired to know the reason why Jonathan snapped him up in that rude angry manner, when he had spoken to him so civilly.1840, Henry Fielding, The History of the Life of Jonathan Wild, the Great, page xlviii

Questions about snapping up

What is snapping up the present participle and gerund of?
Snapping up is the present participle and gerund of snap up.

Words near snapping up in the dictionary

  1. snapping someone's head off
  2. snapping to
  3. snapping to attention
  4. snapping turtle
  5. snapping turtles
  6. snapping up
  7. snapping-turtle
  8. snapping-turtles
  9. snappingly
  10. snappings
  11. snappish

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: snapping up (page history and authors); snap up (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.

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