cash grab

• cashgrab
• cash-grab

cash grab (plural cash grabs)

1. (derogatory) A product designed primarily or solely with the intent of generating profits or money.
   • 2009, Nevin Martell, Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson, →ISBN, page 128:

     Considering some of the other offers that were made, allowing this one piece of merchandise was by no means a cash grab; this was merely Watterson putting a toe in the water.

2. (politics) Legislation that serves primarily the purpose of generating revenue.
   • 2012, Jason Hughes, SAGE Internet Research Methods, →ISBN, page 224:

     Registered in the OED as 'a tax intended to discourage the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, esp. one levied on the burning of fossil fuels', in some of our blog discussions carbon tax is repeatedly referred to as a cash grab.

   • 2010, Ruth Hubbard, Gilles Paquet, The Black Hole of Public Administration, →ISBN, page 294:

     But this governance exercise quickly degenerated into a cash grab exercise (fundamentally corrupting the original purposes), when deficit and debt reduction became the categorical imperative.

3. An activity engaged in with the intention of making money quickly.
   • 2013, Lee Lamothe, Ray Tate and Djuna Brown Mysteries 3-Book Bundle: Free Form Jazz/Picasso Blues/Presto Variations, →ISBN, page 294:

     They went out on a cash grab today, got a couple hundred grand, but they say they've turned the courier around, go intel there's a big money stash out there."

4. The money generated by a cash grab.
   • 2013, Brett Wills, Green Intentions: Creating a Green Value Stream to Compete, →ISBN, page 2011:

     If you are sustainably harvesting, you should be able to sustain the income that comes from harvesting instead of getting a larger cash grab now, and then forgoing future income.

5. A game in which players attempt to grab as much money as possible.
   • 2010, Matt Labash, Fly Fishing with Darth Vader: And Other Adventures with Evangelical Wrestlers, Political Hitmen, and Jewish Cowboys, →ISBN, page 275:

     The culminating funtivity is a cash grab on a Twister-like mat between two people, in which they stuff as much money into their various pockets, shirt fronts, and orifices as humanly possible.