Grab vs Wrest - What's the difference?

In lang=en terms the difference between grab and wrest

is that grab is a soundbite while wrest is a key to tune a stringed instrument.

As verbs the difference between grab and wrest

is that grab is to grip suddenly; to seize; to clutch while wrest is to pull or twist violently.

As nouns the difference between grab and wrest

is that grab is a sudden snatch (for something while wrest is the act of wresting; a wrench or twist; distortion.

grab

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) .

Verb

(grabb)

To grip suddenly; to seize; to clutch.

* , chapter=7

, title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=Old Applegate, in the stern, just set and looked at me, and Lord James, amidship, waved both arms and kept hollering for help. I took a couple of everlasting big strokes and managed to grab hold of the skiff's rail, close to the stern.}}

To make a sudden grasping or clutching motion (at something).

To restrain someone; to arrest.

To grip the attention; to enthrall.

(informal) To quickly collect or retrieve.

* 1987 James Grady Just a Shot Away , Bantam, p117

"I'll just grab my jacket," said Manh-Hung.

* 1999 Jillian Dagg, Racing Hearts, Thomas Bouregy & Co., p105

Hardly believing that Rafe actually planned to relax for a while, Kate nodded. "All right. Fine. I'll just go grab my purse."

* 2009 Mike Taylor, A Thousand Sleeps, Tate Publishing, p216

He looked at Albert and Ben, and then back to Nurse Allen. "I'll just grab my gear and be right back."

(informal) To consume something quickly.

To take the opportunity of.

* {{quote-news, year=2012, date=May 19, author=Paul Fletcher, work=BBC Sport

, title= Blackpool 1-2 West Ham , passage=Both teams wasted good opportunities to score but it was the London side who did grab what proved to be the decisive third when the unmarked Vaz Te, a January signing from Barnsley, drilled the ball into the net from 12 yards.}}

Noun

(en noun)

a sudden snatch (for something)

* 1931 Harold M. Sherman, "The Baseball Clown," Boys' Life, Vol. 21, No. 4 (April 1931), Boy Scouts of America, p47

The ball popped in and popped out, and when he made a grab for it on the ground he kicked it with his foot.

* 2003 J Davey, Six Years of Darkness, Trafford Publishing, p66

He made a grab for me and I swung my handbag at him as hard as I could.

a mechanical device that grabs or clutches

# a device for withdrawing drills, etc., from artesian and other wells that are drilled, bored, or driven

(media) a soundbite

Derived terms

* attention-grabbing * ungrab * up for grabs

Synonyms

* catch * clutch * grasp * seize * snatch

Etymology 2

(etyl) and (etyl) ghurb? : crow, raven, a kind of Arab ship.

Noun

(en noun)

A two- or three-masted vessel used on the Malabar coast.

Anagrams

* * ----

wrest

English

Verb

(en verb)

To pull or twist violently.

To obtain by pulling or violent force.

He wrested the remote control from my grasp and changed the channel.

* Milton

Did not she / Of Timna first betray me, and reveal / The secret wrested from me

(figuratively) To seize.

* Macaulay

They instantly wrested the government out of the hands of Hastings.

* 1912 : (Edgar Rice Burroughs), (Tarzan of the Apes), Chapter 12

There was one of the tribe of Tarzan who questioned his authority, and that was Terkoz, the son of Tublat, but he so feared the keen knife and the deadly arrows of his new lord that he confined the manifestation of his objections to petty disobediences and irritating mannerisms; Tarzan knew, however, that he but waited his opportunity to wrest the kingship from him by some sudden stroke of treachery, and so he was ever on his guard against surprise.

(figuratively) To twist, pervert, distort.

* Bible, Exodus xxiii. 6

Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor.

* South

their arts of wresting , corrupting, and false interpreting the holy text

* 1597 , Shakespeare,

And, I beseech you,

Wrest once the law to your authority;

To do a great right do a little wrong,

And curb this cruel devil of his will.

To tune with a wrest, or key.

Noun

(en noun)

The act of wresting; a wrench or twist; distortion.

(Hooker)

(obsolete) Active or motive power.

(Spenser)

(music) A key to tune a stringed instrument.

* Sir Walter Scott

The minstrel wore round his neck a silver chain, by which hung the wrest , or key, with which he tuned his harp.

A partition in a water wheel by which the form of the buckets is determined.

Derived terms

* wrest pin * wrest plank (Webster 1913)