ergattern

spoken past: hat ergattert
written past (preterite): ergatterte

Meanings

1.
to snag, to manage to get
(Colloquial term for getting something rare and desired. Think of a limited edition of something where lots of people cue up and you get one. The original idea probably comes from managing to trap an animal in a fenced area.)

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We haven't talked about this word in an article in detail. Just leave your questions in the discussion section here, and I'll answer all them :)

Word Family

Root: *ghedh-
The core idea of this root was:

unity, fitting together really well

From there, it slowly shifted from fitting toward the idea of good. In German, it is also the origin of das Gitter, which is a sort of fence (fitting together) and of der Gatte and die Gattin, which are old school words for husband and wife, respectively - literally, the fitting one.

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