latch

Latch comes from Middle English lacchen, meaning "to seize, catch, grasp," from Old English læċċan with the same meaning, tracing back through Proto-Germanic to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to take, seize."

The word started as a verb of grabbing and seizing, and the noun latch — the catch that seizes a door shut — grew directly out of that action.

It's cognate with Middle Dutch lakken, "to grasp, catch," showing the same seizing sense surviving in a neighboring Germanic language.