Word.ws English Dictionary

snavel

snavel verb: to steal; to pickpocket.

Verb

snavel (third-person singular simple present snavels, present participle (US) snaveling or (UK) snavelling, simple past and past participle (US) snaveled or (UK) snavelled)

  1. To steal; to pickpocket.
    • Then he missed his silk handkerchief. “Ghost!” he said, breathing heavily. “Mag′s snavelled it! […] ”1902, Barbara Baynton, Bush Studies, 2009, Sydney University Press, page 59
    • ‘You got to own I’m pretty good when it comes to snavelling venison pasties,’ he said.1936, Norman Lindsay, The Flyaway Highway, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 50
  2. (Australia, New Zealand) To snatch.
    • Paul tried to snavel Dan′s chair from under him.
    • This was in his constituency, and he believed the idea was to go straight through the reserve eventually — that if they snavelled this piece now they would snavel more of this playground a little later on, and completely spoil the reserve.1915, New Zealand House of Representatives, Parliamentary Debates, page 472

Forms of snavel

third-person singular presentsnavels
present participle USsnaveling
present participle UKsnavelling
past participle USsnaveled
past USsnaveled
past participle UKsnavelled
past UKsnavelled

Origin of snavel

Probably related to snaffle, which may be from Dutch snavel.

Questions about snavel

What does snavel mean?
Snavel means to steal; to pickpocket.
What part of speech is snavel?
Snavel is a verb.
What is the past tense of snavel?
The past tense of snavel is snaveled.

Words near snavel in the dictionary

  1. snaughled
  2. snaughles
  3. snaughling
  4. snausage
  5. snausages
  6. snavel
  7. snavelled
  8. snavelling
  9. snavels
  10. Snavely
  11. Snavelys

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: snavel (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-au-snavel.ogg.

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