Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. an arrest; thus cop a grab, put the grab on, to arrest.

1753		J. Poulter Discoveries (1774) 37: They pike up the Prancers; that is, go up Stairs, and frisk the Lumbers; that is, search the Rooms [...] two or three standing at the Door for fear of a Grab; that is, for fear of being taken.
1786		Whole Art of Thieving [as cit. 1753].
1832		Satirist (London) 5 Feb. 47/1: Tom [...] leaped from a window; and, although free of the grab of the beaks, yet he was in a sad dilemma.
1941		‘Digg Mee’ ‘Observation Post’ in N.Y. Age 24 May 9/7: Your ma would call Billy Nab, who’d proceed to cop a grab.
1942		R.L. Bellem ‘Cooked!’ Dan Turner - Hollywood Detective Jan. 🌐 It was up to me to step into the picture and put the grab on him.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 85/2: Grab, n. 1. An arrest; a pick-up by police on suspicion.
1968		‘Sl. of Watts’ in Current Sl. III:2.

2. a robbery, an act of theft.

1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London II 53: One urchin, watching her approach, would lay himself across the path she must pass, and it frequently happened that she tumbled over him; a grab was then made at the reticule, the watch, and the shawl.
1887		F.R. Stockton Hundreth Man 345: The pie-man is on the grab for it .
1909		R.A. Wason Happy Hawkins 34: He thought I was still on the grab.
1927		C. Coe Me – Gangster 197: He can handle the sawed-off when we make the grab.
1932		Z. Grey Robbers’ Roost 210: ‘What’s all this grab?’ he demanded.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 105: grab A stolen article; a theft; a kidnap.
1970		‘Red’ Rudensky Gonif 81: We decided that we’d keep it [i.e. the getaway car] running during our grab.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 171: Two days since the Fleur-de-Lis grab.
2012		T. Robinson ‘The Long Count’ in Dirty Words [ebook] Nowadays, if he pulled a grab, it was more for shits and giggles than actual need.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 127: The grab resoundingly states that Robert F. Kennedy does not trust [police chief] Bill Parker.

3. a thief; a body stealer.

1821		‘A Real Paddy’ Real Life in Ireland 18: Executions of what are called a civil nature [...] pursued him, and he has often assisted by his presence to fill the play-house, whilst the grabs were emptying his own.
1832		S. Warren Diary of a Late Physician in Works (1854) III 134: [We] with an experienced ‘grab,’ that is to say, a professional resurrectionist – were to set off from the Borough [...] the third day after the burial.

4. (UK Und.) booty, the spoils of a robbery.

a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795).
1826		Vulgarities of Speech Corrected.
1833		H. Smith Gale Middleton 1 150: It’s a prime job for us, already, for we are to touch five-and-twenty guineas a-piece [...] we don’t get such a grab as that every day.

5. a bailiff; a police officer.

1826		Pierce Egan’s Life in London 18 June 579/2: Devil take tradesmen, who say we’re ungrateful; / Though we fly from the grabs, to our friends we are true !
1849		A. Smith Pottleton Legacy 123: Do you want to [...] have the grabs point at us as swindlers?
1881		Newcastle Courant 16 Sept. 6/5: Vardo, the grabs are leerie, don’t wait for darkmans but melt.
1958		M.A. Crane ‘Miscellany’ in AS XXXIII:3 225: shamus, fuzz, grab (all meaning policeman).

6. (US) a hand, thus as a grab, a handful.

1826		Pierce Egan’s Life in London 27 Aug. 658/1: ‘You had better keep your gabbs [sic] off me, or I’ll be into some of you, for I’m wickedly bent’.
1850		J.C. Neal Pic-nic Sketches 43: I tell you [...] with cigars at a cent a grab, and a hatful for a thank’ee, I’m not the glass works, all chimbly.
1901		W. Irwin Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum XXI n.p.: The pastor murmured, ‘Two and two make one,’ And slipped a sixteen K on Mamie’s grab.

7. (UK Und.) a miser, a greedy individual.

1846

Swell’s Night Guide 67: The gorgeress, Mother Ruckers, is in no way less notorious than is the crib. [...] She is a rank screw, a dead grab and a stinging nark, [...] vill have her tin, cos malling of it, von’t furnish monjary broad.

8. (US) a ‘go’, a ‘time’.

1901

‘Hugh McHugh’ John Henry 19: One of those sit-back-hold-tight table d’hote places, with wine at 40$ a grab.

9. (US) profit.

1929

H.C. Witwer Yes Man’s Land 311: That one little angle is what run our grab into the millions!

10. (UK prison) one’s pay.

1950

P. Tempest Lag’s Lex.

11. (US) an act of sexual fondling.

1958

E. Aarons Gang Rumble (2021) 11: [...] to take Rose out to a movie, or to Fairmount Park for a quick grab on a hot night.