Verb (vulgar).—1. To Pinch (q.v.); to seize; to apprehend; to snatch or
steal. Grabbed = arrested.
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. The pigs grabbed the kiddy for a crack.
1818. Maginn, Vidocq’s Song. Tramp it, tramp it, my jolly blowen,
Or be grabbed by the beaks we may.
1837. Lytton, Ernest Maltravers, Wk. I., ch. x. There, man, grab
the money, it’s on the table.
1837. Dickens, Oliver Twist, ch. xiii. Do you want to be grabbed,
stupid?
1839. Ainsworth, Jack Sheppard [1889], p. 39. Don’t muddle your
brains with any more of that Pharaoh. You’ll need all your strength
to grab him.
1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, iii., 396. I was
grabbed for an attempt on a gentleman’s pocket.
1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 236. I watched a
movement, till one of the servant girls had brought another load of
grub out, and as she turned her back and went into the house I
grabbed the key, and so they couldn’t lock it nohow.
1886. Baring Gould, Golden Feather, p. 23 (S.P.C.K.). There are
some folks ... so grasping that if they touch a farthing will grab
a pound.