sb. Also snap shot, snapshot. [f. SNAP-.]
1. A quick or hurried shot taken without deliberate aim, esp. one at a rising bird or quickly moving animal.
1808. Col. Hawker, Diary (1893), I. 11. Almost every pheasant I fired at was a snap shot among the high cover.
1846. Greener, Sci. Gunnery, 164. Were a bird to spring in a situation where we could get only a snap shot.
1899. F. V. Kirby, Sport E. C. Africa, iii. 42. I got in a snapshot, tumbling her over like a rabbit.
fig. 1865. Pall Mall Gaz., 2 Aug., 1/2. Our courts of law are distinguished from those of other countries by taking snap-shots at justice.
b. One who fires such shots; a snap-shooter.
1887. Field, 8 Jan., 41/1. I myself am a snap-shot.
2. An instantaneous photograph, esp. one taken with a hand-camera.
[1860. Herschel, in Photogr. News, 11 May, 13. The possibility of taking a photograph, as it were by a snap-shot—of securing a picture in a tenth of a second of time.]
1890. Rev. Reviews, II. 489/2. The annexed snap-shots were taken with a hand camera.
transf. 1897. Daily News, 3 May, 8/3. Your Yankee interviewer is a snap-shot incarnate.
1902. A. Dobson, Richardson, vii. 196. The language of literature seems to tend … towards the cultus of the short-cut and the snap-shot.
3. attrib., as snap-shot photograph(y, system, etc.
Freq. in recent use.
1892. Greener, Breech-Loader, 266. Dr. Carver shoots on the snap-shot system, shooting both barrels in quick succession at the pigeon.
1893. J. A. Hodges, Elem. Photogr. (1907), 15. What is popularly called ‘snap-shot’ photography.
1894. Daily News, 26 May, 6/1. The book is illustrated with a number of interesting views, some of them from snapshot photographs.
Hence Snap-shot v.: a. intr. or absol. To take snap-shots with a camera. b. trans. To photograph (a person, etc.) by means of a snap-shot. Snap-shotter, -shottist, one who takes snap-shot photographs.
Freq. in recent newspaper use.
1894. Amer. Ann. Photogr., 63. Many … think it just the thing to commence with a detective camera and *snap-shot.
1898. C. Smythe, in Pall Mall Mag., Sept., 29. One of our party desired to ‘snap-shot’ the scene.
1899. C. G. Harper, Exeter Road, 211. All trooped back to Amesbury, the *snapshotters disgusted beyond measure.
1891. Scottish Leader, 28 Sept., 6. The Shah of Persia is an enthusiastic *snap-shottist.
