[f. SNAFFLE sb.1]
1. trans. To put a snaffle on (a horse, etc.); to restrain or guide with a snaffle. Freq. fig.
1559. Mirr. Mag. (1563), L iv. For hytherto slye wryters wyly wittes … Have been lyke horses snaffled with the byttes Of fansye, feares or doubtes.
1562. J. Heywood, Prov. & Epigr. (1867), 139. If thou wylt brydell me, I wyll snafell the.
1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 295. Their arrogaunt insolency, beyng a long tyme reasonably well snafled by the Greeke and Frenche Emperours.
1603. Dekker & Chettle, Grissil, 2622. Asse, Ile haue you snaffled.
1679. Bunyan, Fear of God, Wks. 1855, I. 478. The guilt and terror that thy sins will snaffle thee with.
a. 1849. J. C. Mangan, Poems (1859), 279. The animal snaffled by Boileau.
1875. Tennyson, Q. Mary, V. iii. If you marry Philip, Then I and he will snaffle your ‘God’s death,’ And break your paces in.
2. slang. To arrest; to seize.
1860. Slang Dict., 220. Snaffled, arrested, ‘pulled up.’
1902. Essex Weekly News, 24 Jan., 2/6. On one occasion we snaffled a Cape cart in which were two females dressed in male attire.
Hence Snaffled ppl. a., bridled.
1877. Blackie, Wise Men, 335. Their powers … discharge Their snaffled wrath at Jove’s high beck.
