Entry · catalog no. 0871
snatched
/ — /pending
adjective · New York ballroom / nationwide · 2026
✓ Verified
1.
Flawlessly put together — a look so sharp it takes something from you; of a waist, cinched and perfect. "You snatched my wig" means you stunned me.
“Her whole face was snatched at the ball last night.”
Origin & Attribution
Ballroom and Black drag culture of New York, 1980s and 90s, where a beat face and a cinched silhouette got called snatched. Mainstreamed through RuPaul's Drag Race and Black Twitter in the 2010s, then routinely misfiled as generic internet slang.
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Northeast
New York ballroom / nationwide · 2026
Spoken by
New York ballroom / nationwide
$SNATCHThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Rising0 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
12/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
2026
in the culture
Recorded here
2026
point of first record
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@bxgriot
The Bronx, NY
@phillyanne
Philadelphia, PA
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Paris Is Burning — documentary · 1990
submitted
■
+ Cite a sourceRuPaul's Drag Race — television · 2009
submitted
See also