Other forms: snatched, snatches, snatching
To snatch is to grab something away quickly and rudely. No asking, and no time to react.
The speed and the rudeness are both essential, which is what separates snatching from taking. Bag-snatching is a specific crime. The word extends warmly to time, since snatching a few hours' sleep or snatching a quick lunch means grabbing what little there is. As a noun a snatch is a short fragment, so a snatch of conversation or a snatch of song is a piece overheard. Weightlifting has a lift called the snatch.
1verbsnatchTo seize something quickly and roughly.
“He snatched the letter out of her hand.”
2nounshortA short fragment of something heard.
“She caught a snatch of their conversation.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Snatch began as a nibble. Proto-Germanic snakjaną meant to sniff at or to taste-test, and Middle English snacchen meant to snap at, so the grabbing grew out of the biting.
Proto-Germanic
*snakjaną — to whiff, sniff, catch wind of; to taste-test, nibble
Proto-West Germanic
*snakkjan
Old English
*snæċċan
Middle English
snacchen
English, today
snatch
Built from
From Middle English snacchen, snecchen (“to snap; seize”), from Old English snæċċan, sneċċan, from Proto-West Germanic snakkjan, from Proto-Germanic snakjaną (“to whiff, sniff, catch wind of; to taste-test, nibble”), related to Proto-Germanic snakōną (“to breathe, blow, sigh”) and snakkōną (“to blather, jabber, chatter”). Cognate with Middle Dutch snacken (“to snap [of a dog]”), Norwegian Nynorsk snaka (“to snatch [of animals]”). Related also to Dutch snakken (“to sob, pant, long for”), Low German snacken (“to chatter”), German schnacken (“to chat”), Danish snakke (“to chat”) and Norwegian snakke (“to chat”). Related to snack.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA