Word.ws English Dictionary

snatch

/snæt͡ʃ/

snatch verb: to grasp and remove quickly.

Verb

snatch (third-person singular simple present snatches, present participle snatching, simple past and past participle snatched)

  1. (transitive) To grasp and remove quickly.
    • He snatched up the phone.
    • She snatched the letter out of the secretary's hand.
  2. (intransitive) To attempt to seize something suddenly.
    • to snatch at a rope
    Synonyms:
    grab
  3. (transitive) To take or seize hastily, abruptly, or without permission or ceremony.
    • to snatch a kiss
    • when half our knowledge we must snatch, not take1731-1735, Alexander Pope, Moral Essays
  4. (informal, transitive) To steal.
    • 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.1987 November 8, Ron Hansen, “CHILDREN'S BOOKS; DISCOVERING THE OPPOSITE SEX”, in The New York Times
  5. (broadly, figuratively, informal, transitive) To take (a victory) at the last moment.
    • 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.2012 May 13, Alistair Magowan, “Sunderland 0-1 Man Utd”, in BBC Sport
  6. (informal, transitive) 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.

Noun

snatch (plural snatches)

  1. A quick grab or catch.
    • 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; […]1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard
  2. A short period.
    • At the end we preferred to travel all night,
      Sleeping in snatches,1927 August, T[homas] S[tearns] Eliot, “[Ariel Poems.] Journey of the Magi.”, in Collected Poems 1909–1935, London: Faber & Faber […], published September 1954, →OCLC, page 107
    • Frank looked at the screens dully. He had slept about three hours, in snatches.2020, Kim Stanley Robinson, chapter 1, in The Ministry for the Future, Little, Brown Book Group, →ISBN
  3. A competitive weightlifting event in which a barbell is lifted from the platform to locked arms overhead in a smooth continuous movement.
  4. A piece of some sound, usually music or conversation.
    • 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.1857, Herman Melville, chapter XV, in The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade
  5. (slang, vulgar) The vulva.
    • 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?1962, Douglas Woolf, Wall to Wall, Grove Press, page 83
    • 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.1985, Jackie Collins, Lucky, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 150
    Synonyms:
    cunt, twat
  6. Rapid, uncommanded jerking or oscillation of the ailerons of some aircraft at high Mach numbers, resulting from shock wave formation at transonic speeds.
    • 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.1982, National Transportation Safety Board, quoting Federal Aviation Administration, Learjet Special Certification Review interim report, 1981, quoted in Aircraft Accident Report: Sky Train Air...
  7. (dated) A brief period of exertion.
  8. (dated) A catching of the voice.
  9. (dated) A hasty snack; a bite to eat.
  10. (dated) A quibble.

snatch meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

snatch in Hindi

to grasp quickly
छीनना chīnnā
to steal
छीनना chīnnā

snatch in Tamil

வழிபறி, பிடுங்கு, அபகரி

snatch in Urdu

to snatch
چھیننا chīnnā
to snatch, snap, wrench
جھٹکنا jhaṭaknā

snatch in Bengali

to snatch
খেঁচা khẽca
More languagesFewer languages
snatch in Telugu
లాక్కోడానికి
snatch in Malayalam
പെട്ടെന്ന് തട്ടിപ്പറിക്കുക, തട്ടിപ്പറിക്കാനായുക, ബലംപ്രയോഗിച്ച് വലിക്കുക, പിടുങ്ങുക
snatch in Kannada
ಸರ್ರನೆ ಕಿತ್ತುಕೊಳ್ಳುವುದು, ಕಸಿದುಕೊಳ್ಳುವುದು, ಅಲ್ಪಾವಧಿ, ಅಲ್ಪಾವಧಿ ಚಟುವಟಿಕೆ
snatch in Punjabi
ਖੋਹਣਾ khohṇā
snatch in Gujarati
ઝડપવું jhaḍapvũ
snatch in Assamese
থপিওৱা thopiüa
snatch in Nepali
समात्नु samātnu
snatch in Indonesian
rebut, kedut
snatch in Persian
گرفتن gereftan, کس kos, کص kos

Examples of snatch in a sentence

  • "How many times have I told you?" she cried, and seized him and snatched his stick away from him.1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter 2, in Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC...
  • It was a joy to snatch some brief respite, and find himself in the rectory drawing–room.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
  • 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."2022 December 14, David Turner, “The Edwardian Christmas getaway...”, in RAIL, number 972, page 35:
  • “[…]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?”2008, Jim Craig, North to Disaster, Bushak Press, →ISBN, page 178:

All 40 example sentences with snatch

Synonyms of snatch

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of snatch

Forms of snatch

Verb
third-person singular presentsnatches
present participlesnatching
past participlesnatched
pastsnatched
Noun
pluralsnatches

Past tense of snatch: snatched

Plural of snatch: snatches

Origin of snatch

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.

Words formed from snatch

Phrases with snatch

Words that rhyme with snatch

16 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about snatch

What does snatch mean?
Snatch means to grasp and remove quickly.
What is snatch in Hindi?
Snatch in Hindi is छीनना (chīnnā). See Snatch meaning in Hindi.
How do you use snatch in a sentence?
"How many times have I told you?" she cried, and seized him and snatched his stick away from him.
What part of speech is snatch?
Snatch can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce snatch?
Snatch is pronounced /snæt͡ʃ/.
What is the past tense of snatch?
The past tense of snatch is snatched.

Words near snatch in the dictionary

  1. snassy
  2. snast
  3. snaste
  4. snastes
  5. snasts
  6. snatch
  7. snatch and grab
  8. snatch and grabs
  9. snatch and run
  10. snatch and runs
  11. snatch block

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: snatch (page history and authors); snatch (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); جھٹکنا (Urdu) (page history and authors); খেঁচা (Bengali) (page history and authors); snatch (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); snatch (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); snatch (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਖੋਹਣਾ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); ઝડપવું (Gujarati) (page history and authors); থপিওৱা (Assamese) (page history and authors); समात्नु (Nepali) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-snatch.ogg.

Cite this entry: “snatch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/snatch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.