snitch
verbs

1.  to steal
2.  to become an informer

nouns
1.  a thief
2.  an informer

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

—
WORD ORIGIN

The verb snitch (early 1900s), to steal, is probably a variant of snatch (14th century), meaning to suddenly seize something.

Snitch, in the sense of informing on someone, was first recorded in the late 1700s.

—
THE SNITCH WHO SNITCHED!

Sometimes, a person can snitch and be a snitch at the same time as in the case of Daniel Ellsberg, a former U.S. State Department official involved in the Pentagon Papers controversy.

In the early 70s, Ellsberg snitched a copy of a 7,000-page, top-secret U.S. Department of Defense report that outlined in great detail the political and military history of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Not content to merely steal the report, Ellsberg then provided a copy of the report to the New York Times. The newspaper then published a series of articles containing excerpts from the report, in effect making Ellsberg a snitcher who snitched!

Helga & Paul Smith

—
SYNONYMS

- to steal:
   appropriate, bag, burglarise, carry off, filch, fleece, heist, lift, loot, misappropriate, nick, peculate, pilfer, pillage, pinch, pirate, plagiarize, plunder, poach, purloin, ransack, remove, rifle, rip off, shanghai, shoplift, SNITCH, spirit away, strip, swipe, take, thieve, walk off with

- to inform:
   betray, blab, confess, give away, leak, rat on, SNITCH, squeal, tattle, tell, tell on, tip, turn in, whistle blow

- thief:
   bandit, burglar, crook, heister, highwayman, hijacker, hold-up man, kleptomaniac, larcenist, lifter, pickpocket, pilferer, pirate, plunderer, purloiner, robber, shoplifter, SNITCH, stealer, swindler

- informer:
   blabbermouth, canary, crier, deep throat, double-crosser, fat mouth, finger, fink, fork tongue, nark, rat, ratfink, singer, SNITCH, songbird, source, squealer, stool pigeon, stoolie, tattler, tattletale, tipster, weasel, whistle blower

—
SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation today, say something like:

"If you expose a thief you effectively SNITCH on a SNITCHER."

—
P L E A S E   S U P P O R T   O W A D

On evenings and weekends, I research and write your daily OWAD newsletter together with Helga—my lovely wife and coaching partner, and our eagle-eyed daughter, Jennifer.

It remains FREE, AD-FREE, and ALIVE thanks to voluntary donations from appreciative readers.

If you aren’t already, please consider supporting us — even a small donation, equivalent to just 1-cup-of-coffee a month, would help us in covering expenses for mailing, site-hosting, maintenance, and service.

Just head over to DonorBox:
Please help keep OWAD alive

or

Bank transfer:
Paul Smith
IBAN: DE75 7316 0000 0002 5477 40

Important: please state as ’Verwendungszweck’: “OWAD donation” and the email address used to subscribe to OWAD.

Thanks so much,

Paul, Helga, & Jenny Smith

- Feedback, questions, new word suggestions to: paul@smith.de

- OWAD homepage, word archive, FAQs, publications, events, and more: www.owad.de

---

- to unsubscribe from OWAD, CLICK HERE