different between pinch vs snare

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 Middle English snare, from Old English sneare (“a string; cord”), from Proto-Germanic *snarh? (“a sling; loop; noose”). Cognate with Old Norse snara. Also related to German Schnur and Dutch snaar, snoer.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /sn???/, /sn??/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /sn??/
• Rhymes: -??(?)

Noun

snare (plural snares)

1. A trap (especially one made from a loop of wire, string, or leather).
   • 1943, Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear, London: Heinemann, 1960, Book Three, Chapter One, pp. 196-197,^[1]

     He […] watched Beavis’s long-toothed mouth open and clap to like a rabbit snare.

   • 2013, Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, New York: Knopf, 2014, Chapter 18, p. 332,^[2]

     He felt a snare tightening around his throat; he gasped and threw a leg out of the bed, where it jerked for a second or two, thumping the steel frame, and died.

2. A mental or psychological trap.
   • c. 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1, Act IV, Scene 2,^[3]

     If thou retire, the Dauphin, well appointed,

     Stands with the snares of war to tangle thee:

   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Exodus 23.33,^[4]

     […] if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.

   • 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, London: W. Taylor, p. 193,^[5]

     […] and I had now liv’d two Years under these Uneasinesses, which indeed made my Life much less comfortable than it was before; as may well be imagin’d by any who know what it is to live in the constant Snare of the Fear of Man […]

   • 1865, Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters, Chapter ,^[6]

     “ […] riches are a great snare.”

   • 1978, Jan Morris, Farewell the Trumpets: An Imperial Retreat, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Part One, Chapter 9, p. 173,^[7]

     They were devious war aims, and Allenby’s campaign was fought with a maximum of snare and subterfuge.

3. (veterinary) A loop of cord used in obstetric cases, to hold or to pull a fetus from the mother animal.
4. (surgery) A similar looped instrument formerly used to remove tumours etc.
5. (music) A set of stiff wires held under tension against the lower skin of a drum to create a rattling sound.
6. (music) A snare drum.

Translations

Verb

snare (third-person singular simple present snares, present participle snaring, simple past and past participle snared)

1. (transitive) To catch or hold, especially with a loop.
2. (transitive, figuratively) To ensnare.

Translations

Related terms

• ensnare
• snare drum
• snare-picture
• snarl

Anagrams

• Naser, Nears, RNase, Saner, Serna, eRNAs, earns, ernas, nares, nears, reans, saner

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology 1

From Old Norse snara.

Noun

snare f or m (definite singular snara or snaren, indefinite plural snarer, definite plural snarene)

1. a snare
2. a trap

   Synonym: felle

Verb

snare (present tense snarer, past tense snara or snaret, past participle snara or snaret)

1. (transitive) to catch in a snare

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the main entry.

Adjective

snare

1. inflection of snar:
   1. definite singular
   2. plural

References

• “snare” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Anagrams

• Arnes, Ernas, anser, ranes, rasen, rensa, saner

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology 1

From Old Norse snara (“a snare”), from Proto-Germanic *snarh?. Cognate with English snare.

Alternative forms

• (noun): Snara, Snora, snara, snora, snoru (obsolete forms and spellings)
• (verb): snara (split and a-infinitives)

Noun

snare f (definite singular snara, indefinite plural snarer, definite plural snarene)

1. a snare
2. a trap

   Synonym: felle

Derived terms

• rennesnare

Verb

snare (present tense snarar, past tense snara, past participle snara, passive infinitive snarast, present participle snarande, imperative snar)

1. (transitive) to catch in a snare
2. (transitive) to ensnare

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the main entry.

Adjective

snare

1. inflection of snar:
   1. definite singular
   2. plural

References

• “snare” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Anagrams

• Arnes, Ernas, ensar, naser, rasen, saner

Swedish

Adjective

snare

1. absolute definite natural masculine form of snar.

Anagrams

• Arnes, anser, arens, enars, erans, rasen, reans, renas, rensa, resan