Etymograph

English

snap

Snap may come from Dutch snappen ‘to bite’.

  1. Dutchc. 1500–presentsnappen‘to bite’uncertain
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1625snap

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

Earlier history uncertain.

Lineage

  1. Dutchc. 1500–presentsnappen‘to bite’uncertain
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1625snap

Earliest quotation: 1625, Ben[jamin] Jonson: “He's a nimble fellow, / And alike skill'd in…”

The story

From Dutch snappen (‘to bite; seize’) or Low German snappen (‘to bite; seize’), ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *snappōn, from Proto-Germanic *snappōną (‘to snap; snatch; chatter’), intensive form of *snapāną (”to snap; grab”, whence Old Norse snapa (‘to get; scrounge’)), from Proto-Indo-European *snop-; compare Lithuanian snãpas (‘beak, bill’). (One alternative hypothesis links the Germanic words to *snu-, an expressive root deriving words meaning “nose”, “snout”, “sniff” etc., but this is phonetically unsound.) In any case influenced by onomatopoeia; note expressions such as snip-snap, containing the formally unrelated snip.

Every English word from Dutch snappen

Today it means

noun A quick breaking or cracking sound or the action of producing such a sound.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Dutch snappen / snap

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