snack: [15] Snack originally meant ‘bite’ (‘The … Tuscan hound … with his wide chafts [jaws] at him makes a snack’, Gavin Douglas, Æneid 1513). It was not used for a ‘quick meal’ (as in ‘have a bite to eat’) until the 18th century. It was borrowed from Middle Dutch snac or snack ‘bite’, which was closely related to snappen ‘seize’, source of English snap [15]. From snappen was derived the noun snaps ‘gulp, mouthful’, which was borrowed by German as schnapps ‘gin-like drink’, source of English schnapps [19]. And English snatch [13] is probably closely related to snack. => schnapps, snap, snatch
