Entry · catalog no. 4341
snatcher
/ /ˈsnætʃər/ /SNATCH-er
noun · Harlem, New York City; earlier British underworld cant · 1940s
✓ Verified
1.
A detective; by extension a police officer. Specifically the plainclothes man rather than the uniform, which is why calling him out carried a warning.
“Gun the snatcher on your left raise.”
Origin & Attribution
Underworld cant, British in origin and on record in London by 1900, carried into American criminal slang and from there into Harlem speech by the late 1930s. Calloway entered it in both editions of his dictionary, and Mezzrow uses it in running prose rather than a glossary, which is what proves it was actually spoken. It sat in a small lexical field with pounders for uniformed police and the man for the law in general.
1900
Police sense on record in the Sporting Times, London, 12 May
1938
Listed in Calloway's Hepster's Dictionary as detective
1946
Mezzrow uses it in running prose in Really the Blues
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Northeast
Harlem, New York City; earlier British underworld cant · 1940s
Spoken by
Harlem hepcats, hustlers and musicians
$SNATCHThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Historical126 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
14/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1900
in the culture
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
■
Cab Calloway, The New Cab Calloway's Hepster's Dictionary
1944
■
Mezz Mezzrow and Bernard Wolfe, Really the Blues
1946
■
+ Cite a sourceSporting Times (London), 12 May
1900
See also