Idiom
cradle snatcher
Meaning
A person who prefers to date people significantly younger than themselves.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“People often call him a cradle snatcher because his girlfriend is so young.”
“You look like a cradle snatcher when you date someone still in college.”
“Does he know that people think he is a cradle snatcher?”
“When he started dating someone twenty years his junior, his friends joked that he was a total cradle snatcher.”
“My cousin's new husband is only twenty-one, so my grandmother keeps calling her a cradle snatcher at every family dinner.”
“The neighbors whispered about the cradle snatcher next door after he introduced his partner, who was young enough to be his daughter.”
“Despite his protests that age is merely a number, the gossip columns frequently labeled him a cradle snatcher due to his penchant for dating women barely out of their teens.”
Examples
simple
“People often call him a cradle snatcher because his girlfriend is so young.”
“You look like a cradle snatcher when you date someone still in college.”
“Does he know that people think he is a cradle snatcher?”
contextual
“When he started dating someone twenty years his junior, his friends joked that he was a total cradle snatcher.”
“My cousin's new husband is only twenty-one, so my grandmother keeps calling her a cradle snatcher at every family dinner.”
“The neighbors whispered about the cradle snatcher next door after he introduced his partner, who was young enough to be his daughter.”
complex
“Despite his protests that age is merely a number, the gossip columns frequently labeled him a cradle snatcher due to his penchant for dating women barely out of their teens.”
Origin
The idiom draws upon the image of snatching an infant directly from a cradle, implying the extreme youth of the individual being pursued. It emerged as a colloquialism for a person who seeks out a romantic partner significantly younger than themselves.
Key words
Related idioms
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