GRAPPLE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Grapple

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/grˈæpəl/ Listen

verb

Grapple v. t. (past & past part. grappled; pres. part. grappling)

To seize; to lay fast hold of; to attack at close quarters: as, to grapple an antagonist.

To fasten, as with a grapple; to fix; to join indissolubly. "The gallies were grappled to the Centurion." "Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel."

Grapple v. i. To use a grapple; to contend in close fight; to attach one's self as if by a grapple, as in wrestling; to close; to seize one another.

To grapple with, to enter into contest with, resolutely and courageously. "And in my standard bear the arms of York, To grapple with the house of Lancaster."

noun

Grapple n.

A seizing or seizure; close hug in contest; the wrestler's hold.

(a)

An instrument, usually with hinged claws, for seizing and holding fast to an object; a grab.

(b)

(Naut.) A grappling iron. "The iron hooks and grapples keen."

Grapple plant (Bot.), a South African herb (Herpagophytum leptocarpum) having the woody fruits armed with long hooked or barbed thorns by which they adhere to cattle, causing intense annoyance.

Grapple shot (Life-saving Service), a projectile, to which are attached hinged claws to catch in a ship's rigging or to hold in the ground; called also anchor shot.

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Etymology of 'Grapple'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Grapple" Quotes from Famous Books

... of Rome, was the most thorny, the most complicated, that ever a statesman had to grapple with. Though Cavour's death makes it impossible to say what measure of success would have attended his plans for resolving it, it must be always interesting to study his attitude in approaching the greatest crux ...

— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... That ship had a grapple with three iron spikes,— It's lowered, and, ha! on a something it strikes! They haul it aboard with a British "heave-ho!" And what it has fished the ...

— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert

... 1821. The French troops, said the Czar, were not trustworthy; and there was a party in France which might take advantage of the war to proclaim the second Napoleon or the Republic. King Louis XVIII. could not therefore be allowed to grapple with Spain alone. It was necessary that the principal force employed by the alliance should be one whose loyalty and military qualities were above suspicion: the generals who had marched from Moscow to Paris were ...

— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... was a great soul, and had he only been left to himself, or made longer sojourns in England, had he understood English political life more clearly, had he had to grapple with the difficulties which confront public existence in his Mother Country, he would most certainly have done far greater things. He found matters far too easy for him at first, and the obstacles which he encountered very often proved either of a trivial or else of a removable ...

— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill

... over-righteousness re-acts, Accept an anecdote well based on facts. One Sunday morning—(at the day don't fret)— In riding with a friend to Ponder's End Outside the stage, we happened to commend A certain mansion that we saw To Let. "Ay," cried our coachman, with our talk to grapple "You're right! no house along the road comes nigh it! 'Twas built by the same man as built yon chapel And master wanted once to buy it,— But t'other driv the bargain much too hard— He ax'd sure-ly a sum purdigious! But being so particular ...

— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

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