grasp
verbnouncommon in dialogue
- United Kingdom//ɡɹɑːsp//
- United Kingdom//ɡɹæsp//
- United States//ɡɹæsp//
- Scotland//ɡɹasp//
- //ɡɹæps//
To grip; to take hold, particularly with the hand.
verb
- 1
To grip; to take hold, particularly with the hand.
How few! yet how they creep / Through my fingers to the deep, / While I weep—while I weep! / O God! can I not grasp / Them with a tighter clasp?
- 2
To understand.
I have never been able to grasp the concept of infinity.
- 3
To take advantage of something, to seize, to jump at a chance.
Etymology
From Middle English graspen, grapsen, craspen (“to grope; feel around”), from Old English *grǣpsian, from Proto-West Germanic *graipisōn, from Proto-Germanic *graipisōną, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrebʰ- (“to take, seize, rake”), the same ultimate source as grab. Cognate with Saterland Frisian grapsje (“to grab, grasp”), German Low German grapsen (“to grab; grasp”), German grapsen and grapschen, Old English grāpian ("to touch, feel, grasp"; > Modern English grope). Compare also Swedish krafsa (“to scatch; scabble”), Norwegian krafse (“to scramble”).
noun
- 1
figurativeGrip.
A vagrant gust of wind snatched the note from my grasp.
in the tyrant's grasp
What the anvil? what dread grasp. Dare its deadly terrors clasp!
Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.
- 2
Understanding.
There is for the mind but one grasp of happiness: from that uppermost pinnacle of wisdom, whence we see that this world is well designed.
- 3
That which is accessible; that which is within one's reach or ability.
The goal is within my grasp.
Forms
- plural
- grasps
- past tense
- grasped
- past participle
- grasped
- present participle
- grasping
- third person singular
- grasps
grasp · To grip; to take hold, particularly with the hand.
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