Other forms: latches
A latch is the simple little bar that keeps a door or gate closed. Lift it, and the door swings.
It is not a lock, since a latch holds a door shut rather than secure, which is the whole distinction. A garden gate has one and so does a shed. The word gives us on the latch, meaning shut but not locked, and a latchkey, which is why children who let themselves in after school were once called latchkey kids. As a verb, latching on to something means seizing it and not letting go.
1nounlatchA simple fastening that holds a door or gate shut.
“He lifted the latch and pushed the gate open.”
A latch is a grasp. Old English læċċan meant to seize or to catch hold of, from a root meaning to take, so the fastening is named for what it does to the door.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)leh₂g-
Proto-Germanic
*lakjaną
Old English
læċċan — to grasp, take hold of, catch, seize
Middle English
lacchen — to seize, catch, grasp
English, today
latch
Built from
From Middle English lacchen (“to seize, catch, grasp”), from Old English læċċan (“to grasp, take hold of, catch, seize”), from Proto-Germanic lakjaną, lakwijaną, lakkijaną (“to seize”), from Proto-Indo-European (s)leh₂g-, (s)leh₂gʷ- (“to take, seize”). Cognate with Middle Dutch lakken (“to grasp, catch”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA