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I have the following sentence in my textbook:

Let’s grab a bite before we get down to work.

(English Collocations in Use, Advanced, Exercise 1.4)

At first, I thought that the meaning of “grab a bite” is to eat. However, The Free Dictionary offers another meaning:

To seek out or prepare some food to eat, especially a snack or a small meal that can be consumed quickly.

Source: grab a bite, The Free Dictionary

That is, you don’t eat but prepare some food.

Which meaning is more correct?

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    Note that this is one of very few contexts where figurative a bite can be used instead of the "full" version a bite to eat (anything from a small snack to a full meal, but not normally a "substantial" meal unless being used somewhat facetiously)..
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Feb 4, 2023 at 13:37

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These are not really different meanings. The definition you found implies that the snack is eaten after it has been 'sought or prepared'. Preparing food for someone else wouldn't be described as 'grabbing a bite'.

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    I think the dictionary definition is phrased poorly. If it said "To seek out or prepare some food and then eat it", it would be much clearer.
    – MJ713
    Commented Feb 4, 2023 at 9:34
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    @MJ713 - "Food to eat" implies "for yourself to eat".
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Feb 4, 2023 at 11:17
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    I think there's the implication that this searching, preparing the food to eat will take but a brief time, allowing the return to the task at hand without too much interruption. [This would automatically exclude having to hunt it, skin it, spend half the day preparing & cooking it & would tend more towards a sandwich from Pret.]
    – DoneWithThis.
    Commented Feb 4, 2023 at 17:15
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    @Tetsujin - Or a sandwich you throw together from whatever you have in the fridge!
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Feb 4, 2023 at 17:17
  • Yup - In Douglas Adams parlance, a Nantwich… the dampest thing in the fridge, pressed between two of the driest things in the fridge;)
    – DoneWithThis.
    Commented Feb 4, 2023 at 17:21
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The Free Dictionary isn't my favourite...

Wiktionary has among the minor senses of grab: "(informal) To consume something quickly." And "grab a bite to eat" is an idiom of this sense. You obtain the snack and consume it quickly.

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