snavel

present singular third person snavels · US participle present snaveling · UK participle present snavelling · US participle past snaveled · US past snaveled · UK participle past snavelled · UK past snavelled

1. To steal; to pickpocket.

   1902, Barbara Baynton, Bush Studies, 2009, Sydney University Press, page 59, Then he missed his silk handkerchief. “Ghost!” he said, breathing heavily. “Mag′s snavelled it! […] ”

   2 more examples

   ‘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

   Billy May said he made his first electric guitars after talking to an American named Paul Bigsley, who claimed to be the inventor of the Tremolo Lever, which idea, according to Billy, was “snavelled” by Fender and improved upon.

   1996, Lorene Ruymar, The Hawaiian Steel Guitar and Its Great Hawaiian Musicians, page 42

2. AustraliaNew ZealandTo snatch.

   Paul tried to snavel Dan′s chair from under him.

   2 more examples

   1915, New Zealand House of Representatives, Parliamentary Debates, page 472, 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.

   These primitive merchants lost the Booradeela Timber Reserve when it was snavelled up even before the Depression by the Kincomba Building Combine with a wheedled government contract.

   1986, Paul Radley, My Blue-Checker Corker and Me, page 26