GRASP • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Grasp

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noun

Grasp n.

A gripe or seizure of the hand; a seizure by embrace, or infolding in the arms. "The grasps of love."

Reach of the arms; hence, the power of seizing and holding; as, it was beyond his grasp.

Forcible possession; hold. "The whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp."

Wide-reaching power of intellect to comprehend subjects and hold them under survey. "The foremost minds of the next... era were not, in power of grasp, equal to their predecessors."

The handle of a sword or of an oar.

verb

Grasp v. t. (past & past part. grasper; pres. part. qraspine)

To seize and hold by clasping or embracing with the fingers or arms; to catch to take possession of. "Thy hand is made to grasp a palmer's staff."

To lay hold of with the mind; to become thoroughly acquainted or conversant with; to comprehend.

Grasp v. i. To effect a grasp; to make the motion of grasping; to clutch; to struggle; to strive. "As one that grasped And tugged for life and was by strength subdued."

To grasp at, to catch at; to try to seize; as, Alexander grasped at universal empire,

See images of 'Grasp'

Etymology of 'Grasp'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Grasp" Quotes from Famous Books

... land; but not a foot of the land was remitted to private hands for the purposes of selfish pleasure or the exclusion of any other from the landscape. As all business had been gathered into the grasp of the Accumulation, and the manufacture of everything they used and the production of everything that they ate was in the control of the Accumulation, its transfer to the government was the work of a single clause ...

— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells

... tumult in the court and lane. In the midst of a close-packed ring of excited people, chiefly foreigners, shouting in half the languages of Europe, a tall young Cockney, with bloated face and eyes aflame with drink, was writhing and wrestling and cursing. Sometimes he escaped from the grasp of the man who held him, and then he flung himself against the closed door of a shop which stood opposite, with the three balls of the pawnbroker suspended above it. Somebody within the shop was howling for help. It was a woman's voice, and ...

— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... many vessels of this class is a not inconsiderable of itself. The romance of the armed merchantmen affords material for many a vivid page, and when in its proper place in this volume it is set forth somewhat in detail the reader will grasp—if he has not already done so through perusal of the daily press—the fact that all the glory of naval service in this war has not resided within the turrets of the dreadnought nor on the deck ...

— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry

... condemn ourselves to grope in the maze of cultivated opinion, itself the confused result of these past systems of thought which we will not trouble ourselves to think out.' The aim of all philosophy, as Plato said, is just to correct the assumptions of the ordinary mind, and to grasp in their unity and cohesion the ultimate principles which the mind feels must be at the root of all reality. We have an ethical interest in determining whether there be any moral reality beneath the appearances of ...

— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander

... of freedom had grown strong in Martha as the days passed, and when her lover went to see her she had strange things to say. Was he going to stay? Was he going to be a slave when freedom and a livelihood lay right within his grasp? Would he keep her a slave? Yes, he would do ...

— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

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