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, Fourth Edition

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WORD ORIGIN

Snitch can be used as a verb and a noun.

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.

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!

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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, spirit away, strip, swipe, take, thieve, walk off with

(to inform)
betray, blab, confess, give away, leak, rat on, 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, stealer, swindler

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

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Practice OWAD in a conversation:

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