Why is it called a snack?

Originally in the sense of snap, bite.
It comes from Middle Dutch snac(k), from snacken ‘to bite’, variant of snappen

I knew it had to have some sort of Germanic origin.

In our house we don’t snack, we nosh.

@Darwin In German you use naschen ;)
edit:: Just saw the link now.. I knew it anyway =)

But I’m not speaking German.

@Darwin: We do a lot of our noshing at Noshville. ;-)

We have to nosh at home, unless we are in Austin. That’s the closest real kosher deli to us. Hey, it’s on;y 240 miles away!