different between pinch vs snap

English

Etymology

From Middle English pinchen, from Old French *pinchier, pincer (“to pinch”), from Vulgar Latin *pinci?re (“to puncture, pinch”), from possible merger of *puncti?re (“a puncture, sting”), from Latin puncti? (“a puncture, prick”) and *picc?re (“to strike, sting”), from Frankish *pikk?n, from Proto-Germanic *pikk?n? (“to pick, peck, prick”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?nt?/
• Rhymes: -?nt?

Verb

pinch (third-person singular simple present pinches, present participle pinching, simple past and past participle pinched)

1. To squeeze a small amount of a person's skin and flesh, making it hurt.

   The children were scolded for pinching each other.

   This shoe pinches my foot.

2. To squeeze between the thumb and forefinger.
3. To squeeze between two objects.
4. (slang, transitive) To steal, usually something inconsequential.

   Someone has pinched my handkerchief!
5. (slang, transitive) To arrest or capture.
6. (horticulture) To cut shoots or buds of a plant in order to shape the plant, or to improve its yield.
7. (nautical) To sail so close-hauled that the sails begin to flutter.
8. (hunting) To take hold; to grip, as a dog does.
9. (obsolete, intransitive) To be stingy or covetous; to live sparingly.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Gower to this entry?)

   • 1788, Benjamin Franklin (attributed), Paper

     the wretch whom avarice bids to pinch and spare

10. To seize; to grip; to bite; said of animals.
11. (figuratively) To cramp; to straiten; to oppress; to starve.

    to be pinched for money

    • c. 1610?, Walter Raleigh, A Discourse of War

      want of room […] which pincheth the whole nation

    • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture 2:

      The Christian also spurns the pinched and mumping sick-room attitude, and the lives of saints are full of a kind of callousness to diseased conditions of body which probably no other human records show.

12. To move, as a railroad car, by prying the wheels with a pinch.
13. (obsolete) To complain or find fault.
    • 1809, Alexander Chalmers ed. The Works of the English Poets, from Cahucer to Cowper, Vol. 1, modern rendering of poem imputed to Geoffrey Chaucer, "A Ballad which Chaucer made in Praise or rather Dispraise of Women for their Doubleness":

      Therefore who so them accuse

      Of any double entencion,

      To speake, rowne, other to muse,

      To pinch at their condicion,

      All is but false collusion,

      I dare rightwell the sothe express,

      They have no better protection,

      But shrowd them vnder doubleness.

Derived terms

• pinch off
• pinch out
• pinch a loaf

Translations

Noun

pinch (plural pinches)

1. The action of squeezing a small amount of a person's skin and flesh, making it hurt.
2. A close compression of anything with the fingers.

   I gave the leather of the sofa a pinch, gauging the texture.

3. A small amount of powder or granules, such that the amount could be held between fingertip and thumb tip.
4. An awkward situation of some kind (especially money or social) which is difficult to escape.
   • 1955, Rex Stout, "Die Like a Dog", in Three Witnesses, October 1994 Bantam edition, ?ISBN, page 171:

     It took nerve and muscle both to carry the body out and down the stairs to the lower hall, but he damn well had to get it out of his place and away from his door, and any of those four could have done it in a pinch, and it sure was a pinch.

5. A metal bar used as a lever for lifting weights, rolling wheels, etc.
6. An organic herbal smoke additive.
7. (physics) A magnetic compression of an electrically-conducting filament.
8. The narrow part connecting the two bulbs of an hourglass.
   • 2001, Terry Pratchett: Thief of Time:

     It looked like an hourglass, but all those little glittering shapes tumbling through the pinch were seconds.

9. (slang) An arrest.

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ??? (pinchi)

Translations

English

Etymology

From Dutch snappen (“to bite; seize”) or Low German snappen (“to bite; seize”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *snapp?n? (“to snap; snatch; chatter”), intensive form of *snap?n? ("to snap; grab"; > Old Norse snapa (“to get; scrounge”)), from Proto-Indo-European *ksnew- (“to scrape; scratch; grate; rub”). Cognate with West Frisian snappe (“to get; catch; snap”), German schnappen (“to grab”), Swedish snappa (“to snatch”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /snæp/
• Rhymes: -æp

Noun

snap (countable and uncountable, plural snaps)

1. A quick breaking or cracking sound or the action of producing such a sound.
2. A sudden break.
3. An attempt to seize, bite, attack, or grab.
4. The act of making a snapping sound by pressing the thumb and an opposing finger of the same hand together and suddenly releasing the grip so that the finger hits against the palm.
5. A fastening device that makes a snapping sound when used.
6. (informal) A photograph; a snapshot.

   We took a few snaps of the old church before moving on.

7. The sudden release of something held under pressure or tension.
8. A thin circular cookie or similar baked good.

   a ginger snap

9. A brief, sudden period of a certain weather; used primarily in the phrase cold snap.
10. A very short period of time (figuratively, the time taken to snap one's fingers), or a task that can be accomplished in such a period.

    It'll be a snap to get that finished.

    I can fix most vacuum cleaners in a snap.

11. A snap bean such as Phaseolus vulgaris.
12. (American football) A backward pass or handoff of a football from its position on the ground that puts the ball in play; a hike.
13. (somewhat colloquial) A rivet: a scrapbooking embellishment.
14. (Britain, regional) A small meal, a snack; lunch.
    • 1913, D H Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, Penguin 2006, page 89:

      When I went to put my coat on at snap time, what should go runnin' up my arm but a mouse.

15. (uncountable) A card game, primarily for children, in which players cry "snap" to claim pairs of matching cards as they are turned up.
16. (obsolete) A greedy fellow.
17. That which is, or may be, snapped up; something bitten off, seized, or obtained by a single quick movement; hence, a bite, morsel, or fragment; a scrap.

    • He's a nimble fellow, / And alike skill'd in every liberal science, / As having certain snaps of all.

18. briskness; vigour; energy; decision
19. (slang, archaic) Any circumstance out of which money may be made or an advantage gained. used primarily in the phrase soft snap.
    • 1920, Cornell Forester (volumes 1-6)

      The Profs they lead a jolly life, jolly life, / They're free from every care and strife, care and strife. / They make the studes, poor studes fall into line; / I wish the Profs' soft snap were mine.

20. (slang) Something that is easy or effortless.
    • 2003, Clive Selwood, All the Moves (but None of the Licks) (page 33)

      The job was a snap. I travelled the country averaging a thousand miles a week and, since the previous incumbent had been a lazy bugger, managed to treble the business. It was a cinch.

21. A snapper, or snap beetle.
22. (physics, humorous) jounce (the fourth derivative of the position vector with respect to time), followed by crackle and pop
23. A quick offhand shot with a firearm; a snap shot.
24. (colloquial) Something of no value.

    not worth a snap

25. (Internet) A visual message sent through the Snapchat application.
    • 2014, Newton Lee, Facebook Nation: Total Information Awareness, p. 51:

      By April 2014, over 700 million snaps are shared per day on Snapchat — more than Facebook, WhatsApp, and other social networks.

    • 2015, Suse Barnes, Like, Follow, Share: Awesome, Actionable Social Media Marketing to Maximise Your Online Potential, p. 238:

      The oldest snaps will be deleted after 24 hours, and to keep the story going you'll have to add new content regularly.

    • 2015, Yuval Karniel, Amit Lavie-Dinur, Privacy and Fame: How We Expose Ourselves across Media Platforms, p. 120:

      While Snapchat bases its whole product marketing on the auto-deletion of the snaps (images and videos) so that they are not stored, recent reports indicate otherwise.

26. (uncountable) A crisp or pithy quality; epigrammatic point or force.
27. A tool used by riveters.
28. A tool used by glass-moulders.
29. (slang, dated) A brief theatrical engagement.
30. (slang, dated) A cheat or sharper.
31. A newsflash.
    • 2013, Paul Chantler, ?Peter Stewart, Basic Radio Journalism (page 159)

      A 'snap' usually becomes a 'newsflash' on air. Keep snaps short, only run them when news is really 'hot', and try not to break a story within a few minutes of the bulletin unless it is top priority.

Derived terms

• bang snap
• snapless
• snappish
• snappy
• snap roll

Translations

Verb

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

1. (intransitive, transitive) To fracture or break apart suddenly.

   He snapped his stick in anger.

   If you bend it too much, it will snap.

   • 1790, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

     But this weapon will snap short, unfaithful to the hand that employs it.

2. (intransitive) To give forth or produce a sharp cracking noise; to crack.

   Blazing firewood snaps.

3. (intransitive) To attempt to seize or bite with the teeth, beak, etc.

   A dog snaps at a passenger. A fish snaps at the bait.

4. (intransitive) To attempt to seize with eagerness.

   She snapped at the chance to appear on television.

5. (intransitive) To speak abruptly or sharply.

6. (intransitive) To give way abruptly and loudly.
7. (intransitive) To suffer a mental breakdown, usually while under tension.

   She should take a break before she snaps.

8. (intransitive) To flash or appear to flash as with light.
9. (intransitive) To fit or fasten together with a snapping sound.
10. (intransitive, computing, graphical user interface) To jump to a fixed position relative to another element.

    The floating toolbar will snap to the edge of the screen when dragged towards it.

11. (transitive) To snatch with or as if with the teeth.

    • He, by playing too often at the mouth of death, has been snapped by it at last.

12. (transitive) To pull apart with a snapping sound; to pop loose.
13. (transitive) To say abruptly or sharply.
14. (transitive, dated) To speak to abruptly or sharply; to treat snappishly; usually with up.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Granville to this entry?)

15. (transitive) To cause something to emit a snapping sound, especially by closing it rapidly.

    to snap a fastener

    to snap a whip

16. (transitive) To close something using a snap as a fastener.
17. (transitive) To snap one's fingers: to make a snapping sound, often by pressing the thumb and an opposing finger of the same hand together and suddenly releasing the grip so that the finger hits against the palm; alternatively, by bringing the index finger quickly down onto the middle finger and thumb.
18. (transitive) To cause to move suddenly and smartly.
19. (transitive) To take a photograph; to release a camera's shutter (which may make a snapping sound).
20. (transitive, American football) To put (a football) in play by a backward pass or handoff from its position on the ground; to hike (a football).

    He can snap the ball to a back twenty yards behind him.

21. To misfire.

    The gun snapped.

22. (cricket, transitive) To catch out sharply (a batsman who has just snicked a bowled ball).

Derived terms

Translations

Interjection

snap!

1. The cry used in a game of snap when winning a hand.
2. (Britain, Australia) By extension from the card game, "I've got one the same!", "Me too!"

   Snap! We've both got pink buckets and spades.

3. (Britain) Ritual utterance of agreement (after the cry in the card game snap).
4. (Canada, US) Used in place of expletive to express surprise, usually in response to a negative statement or news; often used facetiously.

   "I just ran over your phone with my car." "Oh, snap!"

5. (Britain, Australia, New Zealand) Ritual utterance used after something is said by two people at exactly the same time.

   "Wasn't that John?" "Wasn't that John?" "Snap!"

Synonyms

• (used after simultaneous utterance): jinx

Translations

Adjective

snap (not comparable)

1. (informal, attributive) Done, made, performed, etc., quickly and unexpectedly, or without deliberation.
   • 1889, The Kansas City Medical Index-Lancet, volume 10, issue 8:

     Now I should consider it a very snap judgment or a snap diagnosis for anybody to come into a medical society

Derived terms

• snap election

See also

• Snap (game) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

References

• snap at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• ANPs, NPAS, NSPA, PANs, PNAS, PNAs, Pans, SPAN, naps, pans, span

Dutch

Pronunciation

Verb

snap

1. first-person singular present indicative of snappen
2. imperative of snappen

Anagrams

• span

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

snap m (genitive singular snaip, plural snapan)

1. trigger (of a gun)
2. morsel

Derived terms

• snapach (“having a trigger; that misses fire; that fires; that strikes fast”)

Verb

snap (past snap, future snapaidh, verbal noun snapadh, past participle snapta)

1. pull a trigger
2. misfire

Derived terms

• snapaireachd (“snapping, snapping sound, as that caused by pulling the trigger of a gun”)

References

• “snap” in Edward Dwelly, Faclair Gàidhlig gu Beurla le Dealbhan/The Illustrated [Scottish] Gaelic–English Dictionary, 10th edition, Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, 1911, ?ISBN.

Spanish

Noun

snap m (plural snaps)

1. snap (photograph)