1676 E. Coles Eng. Dict. Snitch,..a fillip.

1699 B. E. New Dict. Canting Crew Snitch,..a Filip on the Nose.

1699 B. E. New Dict. Canting Crew Snite his Snitch, Wipe his Nose, or give him a good Flap on the Face.

1895 W. Rye Gloss. Words E. Anglia 204 Pull her snitch for her.

1902 Westm. Gaz. 3 July 2/1 As the..egg..broke on the ‘snitch’ of the Socialist candidate.

1785 in F. Grose Classical Dict. Vulgar Tongue

c1800 in Ld. Byron Juan xi. xix. Note 14 She'll surely turn snitch for the forty—That her Jack may be regular weight.

1903 Charities 7 Nov. 408 Let it be agreed that everybody can ‘snitch’ upon everybody else without being called a ‘dirty little snitch’.

1906 Atlantic Monthly Nov. 589 He employs that phenomenon of despicability..in Western parlance called a snitch..to work up the lawsuit.

1930 Forum Dec. 375/1 A police informer in New York, for instance, is a stool or snitch.

1959 I. Opie & P. Opie Lore & Lang. Schoolchildren x. 189 The tell tale is..a sly, a snitch or snitcher (common, especially in the Midlands).

1965 J. Wainwright Death in Sleeping City 142 The ‘snitches’ and the ‘grassers’ and the ‘stoolpigeons’ whispered out of the corner of their mouths, and money changed hands.

1979 S. Rifkin McQuaid in August ix. 97 Lopez was an informant..a paragon among snitches.

1943 J. A. W. Bennett in Amer. Speech 18 90 A person [in New Zealand] complaining of another's ill-will might also say, ‘He's got a proper snitch on me’—obviously a variant of ‘to snitch upon’ (to inform against).

1948 Landfall 2 109 These jokers didn't understand the snitch Myers had on you, seemed to think it was right that Myers should always be tormenting you.

1953 O. E. Middleton Short Stories 28 He wasn't a man to get a snitch on his neighbours because of a bit of bad luck and it wasn't long before he was his own self again.

1959 G. Slatter Gun in my Hand viii. 91 Got a snitch on me and put me in crook with the boss.

1940 H. G. Wells Babes in Darkling Wood i. i. 25 Can I borrow your snitch-rag, Gemini?

1900 Daily News 13 Oct. 8/2 The pike..is killed anyhow, ‘shot at sight’, or snitched with a wire loop, or netted.

1904 N.Y. Times 6 June 9 They reached Coney Island by snitching rides.

1933 D. L. Sayers Murder must Advertise iii. 46 He first of all snitched people's ideas without telling them, and then didn't give them the credit for it.

1948 L. A. G. Strong Trevannion xvii. 323 You love a girl faithfully for years, and some glib sod comes along at the heel of the hunt and snitches her from you.

1958 Woman's Own 3 Sept. 55/1 I'm going to borrow Jack and snitch him away from your booksy conversations.

1976 M. Machlin Pipeline xxx. 348 How about that guy who snitched a whole D-9 tractor, brand-new?

1819 J. H. Vaux New Vocab. Flash Lang. in Memoirs II. at Snitch An informer, or tale-bearer in general, is called a snitching rascal.

1903 Charities 7 Nov. 406 ‘Snitching’ means to ‘peach’ or to ‘tell’, a term known to every boy from the wealthiest to the poorest.

1923 W. S. Maugham Our Betters iii. 172 You really might have left Tony alone. This habit you have of snitching has got you into trouble before.

1933 Sun (Baltimore) 24 Aug. 6/7 Not long ago we had the fine stirring story by Neil Swanson ‘The Judas Tree’, and now comes a snitching of that title by Leslie Ford, who calls his new detective thriller ‘The Clue of the Judas Tree’.

1961 B. Malamud New Life (1962) 298 He had been thinking of discussing with him Bullock's concern with athletes but it was too much like snitching.

1972 J. Wambaugh Blue Knight (1973) ii. 39 ‘Okay,’ I said, giving him a chance to rationalize his snitching, which all informants have to do when they start out.