Also snatchblock, snatch block. [SNATCH- a.] A block having a hole in one side to receive the bight of a rope.
a. 1625. Nomenclator Navalis (MS. Harl. 2301), Snatch block is a greate Block with the Sheever in it and a Notch cutt through one of the Cheeks of it by which Notch they reeve anie Roape into it. [Hence in Harris, Chambers’ Cycl. Suppl., etc.]
1769. Faslconer, Dict. Marine (1780), s.v. Block, A snatch-block; a top-block; a voyal-block [etc.].
1793. Trans. Soc. Arts, XI. 173. Passing through proper snatch-blocks.
1839. Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl., II. 97/2. A car … is suspended to the top round of the ladder by means of a chain passing over a pulley of a snatch block.
1886. R. C. Leslie, Sea Painter’s Log, 145. This line, when the boat is launched, passes through … a snatch-block.
