What's the difference between grab and seize?

Grab


Definition:

  • (n.) A vessel used on the Malabar coast, having two or three masts.
  • (v. t. & i.) To gripe suddenly; to seize; to snatch; to clutch.
  • (n.) A sudden grasp or seizure.
  • (n.) An instrument for clutching objects for the purpose of raising them; -- specially applied to devices for withdrawing drills, etc., from artesian and other wells that are drilled, bored, or driven.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) During the couple's 30-year marriage she had twice reported him to the police for grabbing her by the throat, before they divorced in 2005.
  • (2) The ruling centre-right coalition government of Angela Merkel was dealt a blow by voters in a critical regional election on Sunday after the centre-left opposition secured a wafer-thin victory, setting the scene for a tension-filled national election in the autumn when everything will be up for grabs.
  • (3) Montreal also took advantage of the power play, as Tomas Vanek (again, another necessary scorer) grabbed one with the man advantage near the end of the second period to make it 3-0.
  • (4) Van Gaal argued that Huth had grabbed Fellaini’s considerable hair and claimed it ought to have been a penalty but the Football Association’s disciplinary department will surely take action.
  • (5) In a trailer shown Sunday for an upcoming documentary on state-run Rossiya-1 television called “Homeward bound”, Putin openly discusses Moscow’s controversial grabbing of Crimea a year ago.
  • (6) And also fear of the police because they weren't there and thinking any minute they could just run through and grab or hit anyone.
  • (7) One little boy grabbed me and pleaded with me, that the Jungle was not a good place, and he didn’t want to be there.” Last month, protesters staged a die-in at St Pancras station in London against plans to clear the area of the Jungle.
  • (8) The "fly on the wall" stuff is no more for the moment but, Andy, grab the opportunities when you can – a few years down the line when Cameron is on the lecture circuit and the rest of us are hanging up our cameras for good, you should have an unprecedented photographic record of a seat of power.
  • (9) Egypt • Morsi is due to meet senior judges to try to reach a compromise over the decree, viewed by many as a power grab.
  • (10) At that point I was grabbed by the Belgian secret service and slammed against the glass.
  • (11) I think the heart of good comedy really lives in truth and reacting to the absurdities, hypocrisies, abuses of power in the world.” Late night television is a no longer a glass of warm milk before bed, it’s a lunch buffet And as TV viewership declines and internet virality becomes as important as real-time eyeballs, cable networks might find that topical comedy is a smart, cost-effective way to grab cross-platform attention.
  • (12) Another officer grabbing Mann by the collar and threatening his family – to arrest his wife’s “black ass” and ensure he would not see his young son grow up, Mann recalled in an interview – if he did not snitch on a heroin dealer.
  • (13) Latino Review has a track record of attention-grabbing scoops, though its accuracy has occasionally been called into question.
  • (14) He is the embodiment of the belief that money and power provide a licence to impose one’s will on others, whether that entitlement is expressed by grabbing women or grabbing the finite resources from a planet on the verge of catastrophic warming.
  • (15) Then King grabbed the podium and set his prepared text to his left.
  • (16) "At lunchtime, he would grab food from other children's plates and eat it, and that was a cause of concern for the school staff."
  • (17) The bomb threat tweet was sent to Freeman, the Europe editor of Time magazine, Catherine Mayer, and the Independent columnist Grace Dent, who took a screen grab of the tweet and posted it for her Twitter followers to see .
  • (18) Who knows, maybe it's not the worst thing in the world for the Eastern Conference to be completely up for grabs.
  • (19) A waiter grabbed a table cloth to use as a stretcher, but a photographer took the boy in his arms to carry him to the ambulance.
  • (20) As night fell, one teenager, Alex, who had slipped out of an independent school (she refused to say which one) was heading home, pausing only grab a flier advertising a "Snow Rave" for 16-18-year-olds.

Seize


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To fall or rush upon suddenly and lay hold of; to gripe or grasp suddenly; to reach and grasp.
  • (v. t.) To take possession of by force.
  • (v. t.) To invade suddenly; to take sudden hold of; to come upon suddenly; as, a fever seizes a patient.
  • (v. t.) To take possession of by virtue of a warrant or other legal authority; as, the sheriff seized the debtor's goods.
  • (v. t.) To fasten; to fix.
  • (v. t.) To grap with the mind; to comprehend fully and distinctly; as, to seize an idea.
  • (v. t.) To bind or fasten together with a lashing of small stuff, as yarn or marline; as, to seize ropes.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Batson believes there is a “mood” that needs to be seized upon.
  • (2) George Osborne said the 146,000 fall in joblessness marked "another step on the road to full employment" but Labour and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) seized on news that earnings were failing to keep pace with prices.
  • (3) Can somebody who is not a billionaire, who stands for working families, actually win an election into which billionaires are pouring millions of dollars?” Naming prominent and controversial rightwing donors, he said: “It is not just Hillary, it is the Koch brothers, it is Sheldon Adelson.” Stephanopoulos seized the moment, asking: “Are you lumping her in with them?” Choosing to refer to the 2010 supreme court decision that removed limits on corporate political donations, rather than address the question directly, Sanders replied: “What I am saying is that I get very frightened about the future of American democracy when this becomes a battle between billionaires.
  • (4) Among the dead were two young young officers, Major Mujahid Ali and Captain Usman, whose life stories the media seized upon, helped by the military's public relations machine.
  • (5) Remember, if he did seize group power and dispose of the Independent , he'd still be boss of the rest of INM: 200 or so papers and magazines around the world, dominant voices in Australasia, South Africa, India and Ireland itself, 100 million readers a week.
  • (6) Lieberman said: "[Amazon's] decision to cut off WikiLeaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material.
  • (7) Generals who have mutinied have seized the capital of South Sudan's largest state, Jonglei, and its main oil-producing area, Unity State.
  • (8) The coroner also raised concerns that although the aim of the operation in which Duggan was killed was to take guns off the streets, little attempt was made to seize weapons believed to be held by Hutchinson-Foster.
  • (9) Employers seize the workers’ passports and the only body that can issue a permit for a worker to leave Qatar is the employer himself.
  • (10) Backlogs and staff shortages have long been seized upon by veterans groups lobbying for more resources, but it is the apparent cover-up of the scale of the problem that has transformed these latest complaints into a growing political problem for the White House.
  • (11) Social media has seized on the story, turning the Eastern Washington University’s professor of African studies into a figure vilified and mocked for cultural appropriation in the midst of fraught debates over transgender identity and police shootings of black people.
  • (12) A Yazidi lawmaker, a Kurdish security official and an Iraqi official from the nearby city of Sinjar gave similar accounts, saying Isis fighters had massacred scores of Yazidi men on Friday afternoon after seizing Kocho.
  • (13) "This is a formidable challenge, requiring step changes in the rate at which we improve our energy efficiency and in low-carbon innovation.The Carbon Trust's proposals recognise the need for us to be smarter in focusing our investments, including to help businesses seize the economic opportunities of the transition."
  • (14) The US and Iran have had no diplomatic relations since 1979, when a group of student protesters seized the US embassy in Tehran and took US officials hostage.
  • (15) The militants have also seized a huge chunk of territory straddling the Iraq-Syria border, and have declared a self-styled caliphate in the territory they control.
  • (16) But the Tories edited out a crucial final sentence in which Balls told BBC Radio Leeds on 9 January : “But I think we can be tougher and we should be and we will.” Labour seized on the Tory editing of the Balls interview to accuse the Tories of misleading people to defend their refusal to tackle tax avoidance.
  • (17) The Ukrainian president, Oleksandr Turchynov, had given pro-Russian locals in eastern Ukraine until Monday morning to give up their arms and the buildings they had seized, but instead a pro-Russian mob took over yet another government building in Horlivka that day.
  • (18) The terrorists know that if Iraq and Afghanistan survive their assault, come through their travails, seize the opportunity the future offers, then those countries will stand not just as nations liberated from oppression, but as a lesson to humankind everywhere and a profound antidote to the poison of religious extremism.
  • (19) In 2014, they seized on Osborne’s declaration of a “northern powerhouse” to promote One North, a plan for a £15bn network, dubbed HS3, between Lancashire and Yorkshire.
  • (20) The president’s supporters seized on the incident to plant seeds of confusion and false equivalency: if that Russia story was wrong, perhaps all of them are wrong?