grasp

• graps

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 German Low German grapsen (“to grab; grasp”), German grapsen and grapschen, Saterland Frisian Grapse (“double handful”), Old English grāpian ("to touch, feel, grasp"; > Modern English grope). Compare also Swedish krafsa (“to scatch; scabble”), Norwegian krafse (“to scramble”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɡɹɑːsp/
• (Northern England, Scotland) IPA^(key): /ɡɹasp/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɡɹæsp/
• (African-American Vernacular) IPA^(key): /ɡɹæps/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æsp

grasp (third-person singular simple present grasps, present participle grasping, simple past and past participle grasped)

1. To grip; to take hold, particularly with the hand.
   • 1849 March 31, Edgar Allan Poe, “A Dream Within a Dream”, in The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe: […], volumes II (Poems and Miscellanies), New York, N.Y.: J. S. Redfield, […], published 1850, →OCLC, page 40:

     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?

3. To understand.

   I have never been able to grasp the concept of infinity.

4. To take advantage of something, to seize, to jump at a chance.

• (grip): clasp, grip, hold tight; See also Thesaurus:grasp
• (understand): comprehend, fathom
• (take advantage): jump at the chance, jump on

grasp (plural grasps)

1. (sometimes figurative) Grip.

   A vagrant gust of wind snatched the note from my grasp.

   • 1826, William Blake, “The Tyger”, in Songs of Innocence and of Experience:

     What the anvil? what dread grasp.
     Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

   • 1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter III (Accessory After the Fact), page 382, column 1:

     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.

   • 1980, Robert M. Jones, editor, Walls and Ceilings, Time-Life Books, →ISBN, page 44:

     If a mirror does slip from your grasp, do not attempt to catch it. Just get out of the way.

3. Understanding.
   • 1859, George Meredith, chapter 13, in The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. A History of Father and Son. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC:

     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.

4. That which is accessible; that which is within one's reach or ability.

   The goal is within my grasp.

• ARPGs, sprag