Meaning

noun a sharp protuberance

noun a dead tree that is still standing, usually in an undisturbed forest

noun an opening made forcibly as by pulling apart

originFrom earlier snag (“stump or branch of a tree”), from Middle English *snagge, *snage, from Old Norse snagi (“clothes peg”) (compare Old Norse snag-hyrndr (“snag-horned, having jagged corners”)), perhaps ultimately from a derivative of Proto-Germanic *snakk-, *snēgg, variations of *snakaną (“to crawl, creep, wind about”). Compare Norwegian snag, snage (“protrusion; projecting point”), Icelandic…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0