These verbs express the action of laying hold of things with the hands. To grasp is to take hold of firmly: He reached out, grasped my hand, and shook it. To seize is to take hold of suddenly, with force.

• The hawk seized its prey with its talons; He seized the reins of the runaway horse.

Both seize and grasp are general in application and may be used figuratively as well as literally.

• I don’t grasp your meaning; The army seized power.

Grab is more informal suggesting roughness in seizing or undue haste in getting hold of something.

• He grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the path of the car; You may have a sweet, but don’t grab .

In some contexts, both grab and grasp may imply greed.

• She was greedy and grasping ; When her uncle died, she grabbed everything she could get her hands on.

To snatch is to grab abruptly, with a sudden jerk; but where one may sometimes grab with the arms in order to hold, one snatches with the hands in order to take away.

• Instead of grabbing her, the thief snatched her purse and ran.

When both snatch and grab mean to take, snatch implies greater haste and violence, suggesting urgency or desperation: Ravenous, he snatched the food out of my hands. Snatch may express the seizing of something one has no right to, but this is not always the case. Still, the haste of a person who snatches is often prompted by fear of consequences, whether he acts from good motives or bad.

• She snatched the matches away from the child; The fireman snatched up the baby and carried him out of the burning house.

Both snatch and grab are also used in a more informal sense, meaning to get in what little time is available: to grab a bite to eat before the show; to snatch a few hours of sleep between performances.

Where grasp and grab mean to take hold of, grasp and grip mean to hold. A person grasps with a firm but moderate closure of the whole hand. He grips with the strongest muscular closure of the hand that he can exert. To grasp is to hold firmly; to grip is to hold tight.

• He gripped my hand so tightly it hurt; He gripped the railing to pull himself up.

Clasp may mean to grasp firmly in or with the hand: The children clasped hands and formed a circle. Or clasp may mean to hold in the arms in an encircling embrace: The child clasped her doll protectively. A person clasps or clutches something to prevent its escape or removal; but as grip implies a stronger grasping , so clutch implies a stronger clasping : She clutched the doll tenaciously. Clutch may mean simply to grasp and hold firmly: the roots that clutch . Or both clutch and grasp , when followed by at , may mean to try to get hold of. A drowning man clutches (or grasps ) at straws. But clutch implies a greater eagerness or urgency than grasp and may suggest downright desperation. Whether holding tight or only trying for a firm hold, the person who clutches feels frighteningly insecure.

• She clutched her purse tightly, fearing that a thief might snatch it; He clutched at my arm as he fell.