smash-and-grab

adjective

chiefly British

—used to describe a robbery that is done by breaking a window of a car, store, etc., and stealing whatever can be taken quickly

a smash-and-grab robbery/thief

Examples of smash-and-grab in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

At least part of the point of the smash-and-grab operation in Venezuela was to display raw military power. —Comfort Ero, Time, 9 Jan. 2026

Pennsylvania authorities revealed Tuesday that surveillance video captured a brazen Lululemon smash-and-grab, with two masked individuals using a sledgehammer to carry out the overnight break-in. —Bonny Chu, FOXNews.com, 7 Jan. 2026

The moments a Simi Valley trading card store was targeted by smash-and-grab burglars were caught on camera early Sunday morning. —Dean Fioresi, CBS News, 5 Jan. 2026

Officers arrested the 19-year-old men in mid-November and early December, bringing the number of people jailed in the high-profile smash-and-grab to 15, according to the San Jose Police Department, which announced the arrests Monday. —Jakob Rodgers, Mercury News, 22 Dec. 2025

Rhymes for smash-and-grab

• taxicab
• ab
• cab
• crab
• dab
• drab
• fab
• gab
• grab
• jab
• lab
• mab