snaffle

noun snaffles

1. A broad-mouthed, loose-ringed bit (metal in a horse's mouth). It brings pressure to bear on the tongue and the corners of the mouth, and is often used as a training bit. Captain went out in the cab all the morning. Harry came in after school to feed me and give me water. In the afternoon I was put into the cab. Jerry took as much pains to see if the collar and bridle fitted comfortably, as if he had been John Manly over again. When the crupper was let out a hole or
2. figuratively Decorative wear that looks like a snaffle. Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke.[…]A silver snaffle on a heavy leather watch guard which connected the pockets of his corduroy waistcoat, together with a huge gold stirrup in his Ascot tie, sufficiently proclaimed his tastes.

Similar: bradoon

verb snaffles · snaffling · snaffled

1. transitive To put a snaffle on, or control with a snaffle.
2. broadly, figuratively, transitive To quell or suppress. Julian Joolby, when will you learn to snaffle your violent emotion?
3. transitive To clutch by the bridle.
4. informal, transitive To grab or seize; to snap up. “That was my inspiration back in 2005,” he says, snaffling his third roll.
5. informal, transitive To purloin, or obtain by devious means. […] the Master at Arms, the senior member of the lower deck and chief policeman, was found to be drunk; he must have snaffled some of the crew's rum ration always kept closely guarded in a special locker […]
6. Norfolk, UK, archaic, intransitive To talk foolishly. In Norfolk, "jaffle" is used in the sense of idle discourse, of an indecent or malicious character; and a prating busybody is said to be "always a snaffling and jafflin about what don't concern him."