Snap

[fishbait]

Hi my Father always called a pack lunch his "snap". Does anyone know where this comes from? this  stuck with me for many years but when my co workers ask me why i call it this I have no answer. 

[Quizmonster]

The earliest recorded use of the word 'snap' to mean a hasty or packed meal dates back to the 1640s, so it has a long history. Nowadays, it is purely a dialect word used by particular groups or in a particular areas. The reference is probably to the way in which a dog, perhaps, would eat its food...ie quickly.

[SteveD]

Yorkshire.  You'll find it about two thirds the way down the green panel here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bradford/sense_of_place/dialect_11.shtml

[commoner]

...I'm a Yorkshireman and in my particular area snap can mean any kind of food, not only a packed lunch....commoner.

[fishbait]

Thanks. I guess my father was exposed to many dialects working in the Nottinghamshire coal fields even though not from "up North" ! I thought it might be a Miners thinng

[Sammy Snake]

My dad is from Staffordshire, has never been near a coal mine and always referred to his packed luch as snap or snappin' so it possibly isn't a miners thing although he could have picked it up from coal mining mates I suppose!

[Quizmonster]

Far from being specifically a word used by the mining community, some of the earliest references to such a light meal were made in connection with university food or with a hasty snack taken by travellers...perhaps during a break in a long coach journey.
Fair enough, miners may subsequently have taken it as their own in later centuries, but that is not how it started, which - as I understood it - was what Fishbait asked.