latch

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English lacchen, also lecchen,^[2][3][4][5] inherited from Old English læccan (“to take hold of, seize, catch”),^{[6][3][4][7][8]} from Proto-Germanic *lakjaną,^[8][3][2] a verb not found in the other Germanic languages.^[6][3][9] Kroonen relates it to Ancient Greek λάζομαι (lázomai, “to seize, grasp”), possibly a Germanic–Greek word pair;^[8][5][2] Merriam-Webster also compares λαμβάνω (lambánō, “to take”),^[10][2] and Barnhart and Etymonline, after Watkins, trace both to Proto-Indo-European *(s)lagw- (“to seize”).^[2][3] The OED also allows a connection with Latin laqueus (“noose”), the source of lace.^[6][11] The noun is inherited from Middle English lacche, probably formed from the verb, like catch.^[3][5][6][7] For the old sense "loop, noose", Hoad and Weekley prefer Old French lache (“lace”), a variant of laz,^[12][9][11] and the OED leaves the question open.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

To seize or take with force: about 950, in the Lindisfarne Gospels.^[2][6] The noun, a fastening for a door, appears as lacche in a Latin text of 1296–97,^[2] and in English in 1331.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In Old and Middle English the verb meant to grasp or seize, to catch in a snare, to receive or get, and even to grasp with the mind;^[6][3] in alliterative poetry it was used freely for take.^[6] In that general sense it was later replaced by catch.^[3] Trench noted that hardly anything but a door was still "latched", though the word had once been much wider, quoting Golding's Caesar on men "latching" darts and throwing them back.^[13] The sense "to catch something falling" (1530) survived in the dialects of Scotland, northern England and East Anglia, where a latch-pan was a dripping pan.^[6][14] The noun, a catch for a door that can be opened from outside, gave the verb "to fasten with a latch", recorded in the Promptorium Parvulorum (1440).^[2][3][6] Latch on was at first used of a child taking the breast, according to Etymonline,^[3] and the modern sense, to attach oneself to or seize on something, is recorded by Merriam-Webster from the 14th century.^[10] Later developments include a logic circuit in electronics (1959),^[6] and the hold of a baby's mouth on the breast in feeding (1982).^[6] In underworld slang latch meant to let in (1728, in Defoe).^[15]

Timeline

• c. 950 – to seize, take with force.^[2][6]
• c. 1175 – to catch in a snare (obsolete by 1400).^[6]
• c. 1300 – to receive, get; to catch a disease.^[6]
• 1331 – noun, a fastening for a door or gate.^[6]
• before 1366 – noun, a loop or noose.^[6]
• 1440 – to fasten with a latch.^[2]
• 1530 – to catch something falling.^[6]
• 1791 – latchstring; 1825, latchkey.^[2]
• 1959 – in electronics, a circuit that holds its output state.^[6]
• 1982 – the hold of a baby's mouth on the breast in feeding.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A fastening for a door or gate, usually a bar that drops or slides into a notch or groove.^[16][10][6]
2. A door lock worked by a spring, opened from outside with a key; a night latch.^[16][10]
3. (electronics) A logic circuit that keeps the output state set by a brief input signal until another signal changes it.^[16][6]

Verb

1. To fasten with a latch: She latched the gate behind the goats.^[10][6][11]
2. Of a door: to close so that the latch catches.^[10][11]
3. latch on, latch on to, latch onto: to grasp or cling to something; to attach oneself to a person or an idea.^[16][10]
4. latch on, latch on to: (informal) to understand.^[16]
5. (dialect) To catch something falling.^[6][14]

Word family

• relatch
• unlatch
• latchstring
• throatlatch
• latchkey

Related words

• catch
• lace
• latchet

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
14. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
15. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
16. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins