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Snap at   /snæp æt/   Listen
Snap at

verb
1.
Bite off with a quick bite.  Synonym: bite off.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Snap at" Quotes from Famous Books



... its horrors with entire Lack of ire, And pursuant to my comfortable aim, With a snap at every shackle I should quit my tabernacle, And serenely sit and ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)

... used to travel the river playing the wheel, who made a great deal of money and sent it to France. One night he opened a $1,000 snap at faro and I was to loan him my tools. He shuffled his own cards, as he was too smart to use any other; and I went down on deck and pulled some hairs out of a horse's tail, and came back and got one of the coppers and fastened a hair to it. A copper is used to make a ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol

... lily-pad, was Grandfather Frog, and there was a sparkle in his big, goggly eyes and his great mouth was stretched in a broad grin as he watched Little Joe Otter. He even let a foolish green fly brush the tip of his nose and didn't snap at it. ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess

... me," she answered. "I s'll be glad to smell a bit of smoke in th' 'ouse again. A house o' women is as dead as a house wi' no fire, to my thinkin'. I'm not a spider as likes a corner to myself. I like a man about, if he's only something to snap at." ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... around and pull out. By this time fully a hundred pair of hungry eyes were following in the wake of the boat. As she retreated, the sharks grow bolder and approached closer; many of them diving from side to side under the boat, while one of them made a snap at the oars. It did not require much encouragement for the black sailors to pull, as their eyes were standing out of their heads at the time and the muscles showed up on their arms like whip cords as they sent the boat flying to the schooner. They reached ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... bared, and without a sound he hurled himself upon the red bull's flank. Looking back over his shoulder, Timmins saw it all. It was as if all his life Lone Wolf had been killing bulls, so unerring was that terrible chopping snap at the great beast's throat. Far forward, just behind the bull's jaws, the slashing fangs caught. And Timmins was astounded to see the bull, checked in mid-rush, plunge staggering forward upon his knees. ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

... sulkily, put down his hand and glared round like a dingo with the dogs round him—as if he didn't know which to snap at first. Then he looked at Mr. Knightley with a look of hellish rage and spite that ten devils couldn't have improved upon, and, throwing himself down on a chair, drank off ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... through the woods, lashed by the old negro, half beside himself with terror: but the wolves only loped the faster and grew the bolder in proportion to the speed of the wagon. Sometimes they would throw their forepaws as high as the hind seat, and snap at the throats of the girls, who thereupon gave their wolfships severe buffets with their fists and thus ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... about my poor mother, and wished she was here to lick my sore ears. Though she was so unhappy herself, she never wanted to see me suffer. If I had not disobeyed her, I would not now be suffering so much pain. She had told me again and again not to snap at Jenkins, ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders

... exclaimed Elizabeth, hardly knowing what she was saying, 'that I have been using you shamefully ever since you came home. I have done nothing but contradict you, and snap at you, whether right or wrong; and a pretty spectacle we must have made of ourselves. Now I see that you have twice the sense and understanding that I have, and are so unpretending as to be worth a hundred ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... character were taken; her way of sitting on the rug reading, with her arm round her rough bull-dog's neck; her calling to a strange dog, running past, with hanging head and lolling tongue, to give it a merciful draught of water, its maddened snap at her, her nobly stern presence of mind, going right into the kitchen, and taking up one of Tabby's red-hot Italian irons to sear the bitten place, and telling no one, till the danger was well-nigh over, for fear of the terrors that might beset their weaker minds. All this, looked upon ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell

... Paul as if he were a little mouse, and the house were a trap. He was a weak-eyed young man, with the first faint streaks or early dawn of a grin on his countenance. It was mere imbecility; but Mrs Pipchin took it into her head that it was impudence, and made a snap at him directly. ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... for Hibbert, slipping in closer, had begun to tease the beast's left quarter. Mr. Bull, as though resenting such familiarity with all his force, reared, plunged, snorted. The rope hitched about the tree seemed likely to snap at any moment. ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock

... smell of the bait, which in that torrid climate quickly acquires a bouquet which can be detected a mile to leeward, the crocodile is certain sooner or later to thrust its long snout out of the water and snap at the odoriferous bundle dangling so temptingly overhead, the slack line offering no resistance until the bait has been swallowed and the brute starts to make off. Then the man-eater gets the surprise of its long and checkered life, for the planted end of the rattan holds sufficiently ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... so early was a bit hard, and eating a cold luncheon harder still; but worst of all was having to hear him growl and snap at the clerks. Oh, he's perfectly horrid. I don't see how they stand it. Of course, I had my share. 'Miss Blockhead' was his ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford

... refreshed but a small strip of that almost limitless land. The sun came out as hot as before, the withering wind blew from the southwest plaguing and distorting the fancy of men. Everybody in town seemed sulky and surly, ready to snap at a word. The blight of contention and strife seemed to be its heritage, the seed of violence and destruction to be ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... think we were vulgar adventuresses. We are not. He respects me, this dear young man, and it is right that he should. I deserve to be respected. You know the fable about the dog who dropped his meat in the water, trying to snap at its reflection? Well, I don't ask strangers for loans. I make my impression. Monsieur Hugh Egerton is my friend—at present. Later, he will be what I choose. And most certainly I shall choose him for a husband. What luck, meeting him again! It is ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson

... ma'am, if we are to be in earnest, we had best not snap at each other like a pair of puppies. Now, ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... shop you may sometimes see that ugly monster of the deep, the Angler-fish, or Fishing-frog. Now and again he finds his way into the fishermen's nets; and is also caught on the lines, for he is so greedy that he will snap at a hooked fish. Rather than let go of his prey, he will be drawn to the surface. Then he is knocked on the head, and thrown into the ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith

... me swim first," said old Dame Duck, "To this side, now to that; There, snap at those great brown-winged flies, They make ...
— Dame Duck's Lecture - Dame Duck's First Lecture on Education • Unknown

... "There has never been a dog grow old in our family that he didn't sooner or later develop a kind of second puppyhood. I have seen them do all manner of inexplicable things, and one old, toothless, wire-haired terrier used to snap at his shadow on ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... had no gun and all he could do was to take a stick and push the thing out of doors. Then a queer thing happened. When the hot sun shone down on the gila monster (pronounced heela) it was no longer tame and gentle, but would snap at anyone who came near and acted ugly, continuing to hiss with his mouth wide open, on the lookout for the first sign of ...
— Little Tales of The Desert • Ethel Twycross Foster

... started to prevent Caspian getting his entering wedge into the crack of the family fortunes. He was all generosity. Wanted to lend money on a mortgage, just the sort of thing a lazy, happy-go-lucky chap like Moore would snap at. And the child couldn't be expected to look farther ahead than her father looked. Marcel was my next inspiration—a bait to decide Moore that I was not to be despised as an adviser. Now, I am the power ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... He was a complete adept in his profession, and as a regular joke-player, master of all the tricks of his trade. Well skilled was he in the art of attaching a piece of meat to the bell-rope of a porter's lodge, so that all the wandering dogs about town would snap at the tempting bait, and awaken the mystified domestics ten times a night. Very expert was he also at cutting tradesmen's signs in two pieces, and substituting one for another. On one occasion he took the sign of a hair-dresser, cut it in two, and added the latter part to that of one of ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... said, for in reality his hurt was more painful than serious. For the first hundred yards he hobbled along on three legs, and after that he found that he could use his fourth by humoring it a great deal. He followed the creek for a half mile. Whenever a bit of brush touched his wound, he would snap at it viciously, and instead of whimpering when he felt one of the sharp twinges shooting through him, an angry little growl gathered in his throat, and his teeth clicked. Now that he was out of the hole, the effect of the Willow's ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood

... to come to him. The animal slunk back. The Captain advanced among the pack, still calling the hound in the most threatening voice. But the hound slunk further, growling and showing his teeth. The Captain sprang forward and brought down his whip. The dog, mutinous, made a snap at the Captain. The latter, now deeply enraged, threw aside the whip, caught the animal by the neck, lifted it high, and, with a swift contraction of his fingers, caused its eyes and tongue to protrude and its body to writhe and hang powerless. ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens

... fluted as April by a thrush in the lilacs, Prosper and the Countess walked together on the terrace. A guard or two, pike in hand, lounged by the balustrade; the deer-hound, with his muzzle between his paws, twitched his ears or woke to snap at a fly: it seemed as if the earth, sure of the sun at last, left her conning tower with a happy sigh. It turned the Countess to a tender mood, where she suffered herself to be played upon by the season— L'ora del tempo e la dolce stagione. The spring whimpered in her blood. Prosper felt her sighing ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... longshoreman at Deal, and he had got a great lot to tell of his cousin and her husband, and more especially of one, Hannah; Hannah was his cousin's baby—a most marvellous child, who was born with its "buck" teeth fully developed, and whose first unnatural act on entering the world was to make a snap at the "docther." "Hung on to his fist like a ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... are always ready to eat," replied his Mother; "you know that they are caught by bait. This bait is often a little worm, put upon a sharp hook. The fish snap at the bait, and the hook catches them in the mouth. Come, little hungry fish," added his Mother, "and I will give you something to eat; but I will not put it on a hook to ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown

... prizefight and a greengrocer's in Whitechapel. But the dog's not mad, though his bite 's bad; he 's an eccentric mongrel. He wants the whip; ought to have had it regularly from his first breeching. He shall whistle for her when he repents; and he will, mark me. This gout here will be having a snap at the vitals if I don't start to-night. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... be serious this year, says a daily paper, and drastic action should be taken against the apple weevil. A very good plan is to make an imitation apple of iron and then watch the weevil snap at it and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 19, 1920 • Various

... no humor in it. "It's going to take a composite ram. We've got to put down our heads and bunt together. Riggs, you can snap at his heels and ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan

... stood like blood in the glass. Then with a loud laugh she said: "Faith, I know no such glorious pleasure, nothing, I mean, so like what one may call perfect rapture and bliss, as when such a wedded couple, who in earlier days were once a pair of fond lovers, fall out in this way, and snarl and snap at each other, like cat and dog, or two tiger-beasts, and scold and curse each other, and would each give up heart and soul to Satan, only to hurt and pain or to get rid of the other. This, my young lad, is the ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... never want to pay any attention to—abuse and flattery. The first can't harm you and the second can't help you. Some men are like yellow dogs—when you're coming toward them they'll jump up and try to lick your hands; and when you're walking away from them they'll sneak up behind and snap at your heels. Last year, when I was bulling the market, the longs all said that I was a kind-hearted old philanthropist, who was laying awake nights scheming to get the farmers a top price for their hogs; and the shorts allowed that I was an ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer

... to a mop or a wisp of tow—was to mop up Pug, and polish him off the hearth-rug of Fashion; a mission which he appears to have at least partially accomplished. For now the black muzzle of Pug is but seldom to be seen protruded from carriage-window, biding his time for a snap at the first kid-gloved finger that wags within range of his overlapping tusks in waving salutation to his dowager mistress,—for, of the dowagers, above all, he was one of the chronic calamities. Oftener, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... one of them; but the modest maidens said never a word! It was not their way to speak; only the gay calico ponies pranced about and sportively threw back their ears to snap at the horses of the ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... look here: I can stand 'em single-file, but if I'm made to face 'em in squads, why, you blame nobody but yourself if I foam at the mouth and chase myself in a circle and snap at legs, you ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... a fish snap at my bait, checked it, and knew that I was fast into a monster. For a few moments he let me feel something heavy and inert at the end of my line, then there was a plunge and a rush, the line went hissing out, and try as I would to check it, the fish ran straight off till I dragged with all ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn

... his spine small eft-things course, Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh: And while above his head a pompion-plant, Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye, Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard, And now a flower drops with a bee inside, 10 And now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch,— He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross And recross till they weave a spider-web, (Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times) And talks, to his own self, howe'er ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... and star-fish. The dragonets are quaint, wide-awake little fish. I saw one snap at a big, fat, red star-fish, who was sticking to the side of a rock. Why the dragonet snapped at him I have no idea. I do not believe he hurt him; but the star-fish gradually relaxed his hold, and ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... couldn't be angry, even if they had got the foreway of me in it, bekase it's an ould custom. While the priest was going over the business, I kept my eye about me, and sure enough, there were seven or eight fellows all waiting to snap at her. When the ceremony drew near a close, I got up on one leg, so that I could bounce to my feet like lightning, and when it was finished, I got her in my arm, before you could say Jack Robinson, and swinging her behind the priest, gave her the ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... was a mansion for him, a court: and now has he land and beefs. Well, I'll be acquainted with him, if I return; and it shall go hard but I'll make him a philosopher's two stones to me: if the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap at him. Let time shape, and ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]

... rogue enough at bottom. When I have touzled and rumpled you a little, we shall see. I am no chicken, miss, whatever you may think. I know what is what, and can see as far into a millstone as another. Ay, ay; you will come to. The fish will snap at the bait, never doubt it. Yes, yes, we shall rub ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... trying! Ben is surpassed already. Such jumping, such poising, such spinning, such india-rubber exploits generally! That boy with a red cap is the lion now: his back is a watch-spring, his body is cork—no, it is iron, or it would snap at that. He is a bird, a top, a rabbit, a corkscrew, a sprite, a flesh-ball, all in an instant. When you think he's erect, he is down; and, when you think he is down, he is up. He drops his glove on the ice, and turns a somerset as he picks it up. Without stopping, he snatches the cap ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... countenance, when I begin. But yonder is a fellow[206] that gapes to bite me, or else to eat that which I sing. Why, thou art a fool; canst thou not keep thy mouth strait together? And when it comes, snap at it, as my father's dog would do at a liver. But thou art so greedy, That thou thinkest to eat it ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley

... we all flung ourselves off our horses. I, having my rifle in my hand, managed to throw a shot after the biggest lion as he vanished. It was a snap at nothing, and missed. Then in an opening on the edge a hundred yards away appeared one of the lionesses. She was trotting slowly, and on her I had time to draw a hasty aim. At the shot she bounded high in the air, ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... "You may be wanted for Palaemon. You see, this is how it stands. The young shepherd was originally played at Drury Lane by a boy—and in Dublin by an actress; it is a boy's part, indeed. Well, you know, we thought Cis Yorke would snap at it; and she was eager enough at first; but"—and here Lady Adela smiled demurely—"I think her courage gave way. The boy's dress looked charming as Rose sketched it for her—and the long cloak made it quite proper, ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... once made a snap at the gray cat, and she put up her back, spit and clawed at him, and ran off as fast ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various

... don't see nice ladies," broke in Jenny. "My, how those queens of society can snap at you! Seems 'if they blame me for everything: the stock, the price, the slow cash boys,—whatever bothers 'em, ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... evenly, tie a string around the glass, saturated with kerosene, then fill with cold water as high as the string; set fire to the string, and glass will snap at point ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various

... while the sheep were mostly lying down, and the shepherd, having left them to the care of the dogs, was himself stretched under the shade of a rock a little way apart, and the princess sat knitting, with Prince at her feet, lying in wait for a snap at a great fly, for even he had his follies—Rosamond saw a poor woman come toiling up the hill, but took little notice of her until she was passing, a few yards off, when she heard her utter the dog's name ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald

... you have selected as your future employer does snap at you viciously when you call on him; his ferocity signifies no more than that you must approach and handle him carefully. Your prospecting and your size-up should have convinced you that he is not in fact ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... through the forest there, where you see those wolves lurking about. They will begin to be dangerous when the sun goes down, and perhaps some of them would not mind a snap at a horse or ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... having disposed of the affairs of the nation and witnessed Geordie snap at the peddler's bait, cried out ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... But take care of your fingers, daughter; she may snap at them and give you a bite that you will remember for a long while. Now go and get yourselves ready for tea. It is almost time for the ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley

... and stamped enthusiastically, while Sancho, who had been calmly surveying the show, barked his approval as he leaped up to snap at Ben's feet. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various

... important movement was pending. Accordingly he was blindfolded, his arms bound, and he was led away in the night by the two men called Long Jim and Silent Tom. They left him toward morning, saying that the other captive would be delivered on the day following. When curs began to snap at his ankles he knew that he was near the village outside Detroit, and he shouted for help. ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... ought to ha' been smart an' taken down the lady's name; an' then I could ha' got Kathryne to paint her another. But you mu't do it now, Kathryne, an' put it up in the bookseller's winder; an' then, if she's anybody that belongs hereabouts, she'll be likely to snap at it, an' the money can go right into the orphans' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... word, Ted, sure I didn't!" cried Bud, still wrestling with the ashcans in the darkness, and kicking right and left at imaginary rats which he believed were advancing in a drove to snap at his shins. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren

... bringing slugs, caterpillars, grubs, and various insects for the toads, may learn what composes the food of the animal. It is to be observed that the toad does not snap at an ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education

... story." He stood up, filling the doorway with his bulk. "I can tell you-all a story about this here house," he said, addressing himself to the children. He smiled happily. "You-all don't need to look so solemn, a body ain't going to snap at you! This house are the old Blount cabin, but the Blounts done moved away from it years and years ago. They're down Fayetteville way now. There was a passel of 'em and they was about as common a lot of white folks as you'd find anywhere; I know, because ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... embryonic existence of each creature. In the case of lower animals it is almost as much so with the few simple actions which make up the creature's mental life. The bird known as the fly-catcher no sooner breaks the egg than it will snap at and catch a fly. This action is not so very simple, but because it is something the bird is always doing, being indeed one out of the very few things that this bird ever does, the nervous connections needful for doing it are all established before birth, and nothing but the presence of the fly is ...
— The Meaning of Infancy • John Fiske

... little hut, whence a faint smoke curled, the back wall of piled logs still wearing dead branches and foliage at the ends. A reddish cur, as lawless-looking as his masters, rushed from the doorway to snap at Arthur's heels. The suspicious glances of the foresters bore hardly more welcome, till they heard that the stranger belonged to the settlers on Cedar Pond, and had simply lost his way. They informed ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... in ill-usage or neglect. I am not quite such a scoundrel as that. But if I had the luck to meet with a woman I could like, tolerably pretty and agreeable, and all that kind of thing, and weak enough to care for me—a woman with a handsome fortune—I should be a fool not to snap at such ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... "you shall have blood to suck. But we'll leave the English be. France first, then our dogs will take a snap at the flag on the citadel yonder." He nodded ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the way one of our boatmen lost his hat, his only garment, into the river, and overboard he went, like a dog, and soon had it and climbed on board again. I wondered why some of the big alligators did not make a snap at him. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... hope that. The thread of her life is worn very thin. It may snap at any moment. You cannot look seriously in your grandmother's face, and yet delude yourself with the hope that she has years ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... already that one should sit up at a table and not lean forward or lounge back, that he should not take large mouthfuls and that he should not snap at his food, that he should eat without noise and with great cleanliness. He knows that his napkin should be unfolded (it should be unfolded once and not spread out) and laid across his lap, not tucked into his collar or the top of his vest. He knows ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney

... with excitement: "Well, ef dat ain't de beatinest trick et ebber I seed! Think dat yaller houn' ain't stole de biskit outen de ub'n? An', 'fo' Gord! I didn't know he'd been out o' here long 'nuff for a dog to snap at a fly! Ef you ain't de oudaishusest—" She stopped and glared at him with the despairing, silent venom of one who felt herself a pauper in words, a verbal failure, a wretched creature who in the supreme hour of trial was proving herself the wrong ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... long, they recognised me, and also my greyhound, of which they had previously been very fond. They soon became much attached to me, and would fawn on me like dogs, licking my face and hands; they were always, however, ready to growl and snap at a stranger. I took them to Agra at the time of the great Durbar there, and used to let them loose in camp with my dogs, so ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... out with her heart-beats. Vanna, by way of weaning her baby, it seems, was tempting him with gobbets of peach from a wine-glass. She bit a corner from the peach and tendered it in her lips to the youngster on her lap. The baby (a vigorous child) made a snap at it like a trout at a fly, and a gulp so soon as he had it. The peach was hard, the morsel had many corners,—went down bristling, as it were. Cola had his first stomach-ache, was hurt, was miserable, prepared to howl. At that moment La Testolina happened to look at him: she stared, she gasped, ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... proverb, "Love me, love my dog:" that is not always so very practicable, particularly if the dog be set upon you to tease you or snap at you in sport. But a dog, or a lesser thing,—any inanimate substance, as a keep-sake, a watch or a ring, a tree, or the place where we last parted when my friend went away upon a long absence, I can make ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... going down hill,—I said, as neatly as if I had been a High-Church curate trained to snap at the last word of the response, so that you couldn't wedge in the tail of a comma between the end of the congregation's closing syllable and the beginning of the next petition. They do it well, but it always spoils my devotion. To save my life, I can't help watching them, as I watch to ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... And when you snap at the fist which is trying to strangle you, your voice, and your ardent protest, preventing you from being heard—I rejoice, praying that your teeth may be sharpened. And when you are marching against Sodom and Gomorrah, to tear down the old, my soul is with you, and the certainty that ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various

... with the injured foreleg, endured Michael's sniff with no more than hysterical growls deep in the throat; but the flipping out of Michael's tongue was too much. The wounded terrier exploded in a futile snap at ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... to her aid, and taking the urn from her he bore it in his beak to the fountain, which was guarded by two horrible dragons. It needed all his strength and skill to pass by them, and indeed it was only when he told them that Aphrodite needed it to give fresh lustre to her beauty that they ceased to snap at him ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various

... character or willing to suspend hostilities; in spite of the friendly attitude of their masters and the peacefulness of the occasion generally, they make furtive dashes through the ranks of the spectators at me as I wheel round the small circular threshing-floor, and savagely snap at the revolving wheels. Sometimes, after being held in check until I am out of sight beyond a knoll, these vindictive and determined assailants will sneak around through the fields, and, overtaking me unseen, make stealthy onslaughts upon me from the brush; my only safety is in ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... having only picked up. I can't exactly define it. It was almost something physical. Have you ever seen a retriever dashing in play after a greyhound? You see the two running over a green field, almost side by side, and suddenly the retriever makes a friendly snap at the other. And the greyhound simply isn't there. You haven't observed it quicken its speed or strain a limb; but there it is, just two yards in front of the retriever's outstretched muzzle. So it was with Florence and Leonora ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford

... path on our left. I stopped, for we had no weapons. Hedulio, however, went on, never altering his easy saunter. The wolf came out of the ferns and paced up to Hedulio like a house dog. Hedulio patted his head, pulled his ears and the wolf not only did not attack him nor snap at him, nor even snarl, but showed his pleasure as plainly as any pet dog. When Hedulio had stopped petting him, I reached them. We two went on as if we were alone, leaving the wolf standing looking after us as if he were watch-dog at the house of an ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White



Words linked to "Snap at" :   bite off, seize with teeth, bite



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