[f. as prec.]
1. Sharp, curt, snappish; peevish, petulant.
1642. Milton, Apol. Smect., Wks. 1851, III. 255. His designe was … with quips and snapping adagies to vapour them out.
1718. Ockley, Saracens (Bohn), 177. Omar … grew very angry:… at last he wrote a short snapping sort of a letter.
1746. Exmoor Scolding (E. D. S.), 106. Go, ye rearing, snapping, tedious, cutted Snibblenose!
1880. ‘Ouida,’ Moths, III. 17–8. Only I know frights are always thought natural, as snubbing, snapping creatures are thought so sweetly sincere.
2. That snaps or breaks suddenly.
1823. Lamb, Elia, II. Amicus Redivivus. Marvellous escapes—… by orchard pranks, and snapping twigs.
1899. F. V. Kirby, Sport E. C. Africa, xx. 218. Our ears were gladdened by the sound of a snapping branch.
3. That snaps with the jaws or beak.
1873. G. C. Davies, Mount. & Mere, xiv. 116. Such screaming and laughing as they pulled the struggling snapping brutes ashore.
1890. S. W. Baker, Wild Beasts, II. 29. The force of the snapping jaws would crush any human bone.
b. Snapping-turtle, one or other of the North American freshwater tortoises of the family Chelydridæ, esp. Chelydra serpentina, the alligator terrapin. (Cf. SNAPPER sb.1 5 c.)
1848. Bartlett, Dict. Amer., 316. Snapping-turtle.… A reptile common to all parts of the United States, so named from its propensity to snap at everything within its reach.
1850. Lyell, 2nd Visit U.S., II. 205. On the shore of the lake we caught a tortoise, called here the snapping-turtle.
1884. Goode, Nat. Hist. Aquat. Anim., 153. The more northern species, Chelydra serpentina, known everywhere throughout the United States as the ‘Snapping Turtle.’
c. Snapping beetle (or bug), snapping mackerel (see quots.).
1868. Rep. U.S. Commissioner Agric. (1869), 93. These insects [sc. Elateridæ] are known in Europe by the common name of ‘skip-jacks,’… and in America as ‘snapping beetles,’ and erroneously ‘snapping bugs.’
1884. Goode, Nat. Hist. Aquat. Anim., 433. The Bluefish, Pomatomus saltatrix,… [is] in some parts of New England called ‘Snapping Mackerel’ or ‘Snappers.’
