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Gripe   Listen
noun
Gripe  n.  
1.
Grasp; seizure; fast hold; clutch. "A barren scepter in my gripe."
2.
That on which the grasp is put; a handle; a grip; as, the gripe of a sword.
3.
(Mech.) A device for grasping or holding anything; a brake to stop a wheel.
4.
Oppression; cruel exaction; affiction; pinching distress; as, the gripe of poverty.
5.
Pinching and spasmodic pain in the intestines; chiefly used in the plural.
6.
(Naut.)
(a)
The piece of timber which terminates the keel at the fore end; the forefoot.
(b)
The compass or sharpness of a ship's stern under the water, having a tendency to make her keep a good wind.
(c)
pl. An assemblage of ropes, dead-eyes, and hocks, fastened to ringbolts in the deck, to secure the boats when hoisted; also, broad bands passed around a boat to secure it at the davits and prevent swinging.
Gripe penny, a miser; a niggard.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Gripe" Quotes from Famous Books



... had begun to entertain the idea of challenging the Spaniard to mortal combat. As it was, however, his good nature at once gave way to the pacific overture that was made him. Seizing the apologist by the hand, with a gripe that produced some dismal contortions of countenance on the part of him on whom ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... orbs but ill resemble the azure and ecstatic tenderness of her eyes. The lucid stream that meandered over that bosom, the glow of love that was wont to sit upon that cheek, are much unlike these livid stains and this hideous deformity. Alas! these were the traces of agony; the gripe of the assassin ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... from the foeman's gripe Your country's banner it was yours to wrest,— Ah, many a forehead shows the banner-stripe, And stars, once crimson, hallow ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... draw back; come, a cordial gripe. We are friends; we have both suffered from the same cause. There, that's right—honest palm to palm. Now, how say you—have you ever ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... which the good-natured Borderer endeavoured to propitiate the offended Dwarf by every argument he could think of, he heard him with his eyes bent on the ground, as if in the deepest meditation, and at length broke forth—"Nature?—yes! it is indeed in the usual beaten path of Nature. The strong gripe and throttle the weak; the rich depress and despoil the needy; the happy (those who are idiots enough to think themselves happy) insult the misery and diminish the consolation of the wretched.—Go hence, thou who hast contrived to give an additional pang to the most ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

... scenery. Its form is a pyramid, whose top is lost in the sky, as its base in tumultuous murky waves. From the fluctuating crowds who inundate the base of the tribunal, we rise to Pilate, surrounded and perplexed by the varied ferocity of the sanguinary synod to whose remorseless gripe he surrenders his wand, and from him we ascend to the sublime resignation of innocence in Christ, and, regardless of the roar, securely repose on his countenance. Such is the grandeur of a conception, which in its blaze ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet

... riding, pressed a doe to dire extremity, and it has only been when hope had entirely forsaken her, or when her capture was inevitable, that she has reluctantly thrown out the fawn. Their method of warfare has often reminded me of the style of two practiced pugilists, the aim of each being to firmly gripe his opponent by the shoulder, upon accomplishing which, the long hind leg, with its horny blade projecting from its toe, comes into formidable play. It is lifted and drawn downward with a rapid movement, and one or other of the combatants soon shows the entrails laid ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various

... cunning policie in thieves, to place chamberlains in such great inns where cloathiers and graziers do lye; and by their large bribes to infect others, who were not of their own preferring; who noting your purses when you draw them, they'l gripe your cloak-bags, and feel the weight, and so inform the master thieves of what they think, and not those alone, but the Host himself is oft as base as they, if it be left in charge with them all night; he to his roaring guests either gives ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... together placed, Then their blood was scatter’d on every side; Desperate the fight, and the fight did last ’Till the brave black dog in Bran’s gripe died. ...
— King Hacon's Death and Bran and the Black Dog - two ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise

... when the latter kingdom was in the habit of adopting the politics of France, and [end of page 261] embracing its interests, there seems to have been some repelling principle that kept the little nation out of the gripe of the great one. ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair

... have briefly overronne to direct your understanding to the wel-head of the History; that from thence gathering the whole intention of the conceit, ye may as in a handfull gripe al the discourse, which otherwise may happily seeme ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... Mother had the gripe and clutch of poverty upon her face, upon her figure, and not least of all upon her voice. Her sharp and high- pitched words were squeezed out of her, as by the compression of bony fingers on a leathern bag; and she had a way of rolling her eyes about and about the cellar, as she scolded, ...
— George Silverman's Explanation • Charles Dickens

... was going on below. Gibbs found the mate and seized him, while Atwell and Church came down and struck him with a pump break and a club; he was then dragged upon deck; they called for Dawes to come to them, and as he came up the mate seized his hand, and gave him a death gripe! three of them then hove him overboard, but which three Dawes does not know; the mate when cast overboard was not dead, but called after them twice while in the water! Dawes says he was so frightened that ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... that stately apologue. Apollo kept the flocks of Admetus, said the poets. When the gods come among men, they are not known. Jesus was not; Socrates and Shakspeare were not. Antaeus was suffocated by the gripe of Hercules, but every time he touched his mother earth his strength was renewed. Man is the broken giant, and in all his weakness both his body and his mind are invigorated by habits of conversation ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... to the Vatican, go see Laocoon's torture dignifying pain - A father's love and mortal's agony With an immortal's patience blending: —Vain The struggle; vain, against the coiling strain And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp, The old man's clench; the long envenomed chain Rivets the living links,—the enormous asp Enforces pang on pang, and stifles ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... repast, and heap the altars with loaded platters. Then the Salii stand round the lit altar-fires to sing, their brows bound with poplar boughs, one chorus of young men, one of elders, and extol in song the praises and deeds of Hercules; how first he strangled in his gripe the twin terrors, the snakes of his stepmother; how he likewise shattered in war famous cities, Troy and Oechalia; how under Eurystheus the King he bore the toil of a thousand labours by Juno's malign decrees. Thine ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... To me, o'erwearied with life's din and strain, Are grateful as the solemn blank of night After the fierce day's irritant excess; Besides, a deep absorbing interest Detains me here, fills up my mind, and sways My inmost thoughts—has got, as 'twere a gripe Upon my very life, as strange as new. I scarcely know how well to speak of this, Fearing your raillery at best—at worst Even your contempt; yet, spite of all, ...
— A Roman Lawyer in Jerusalem - First Century • W. W. Story

... am most afraid of is my having told him plainly that he was in my power; it's apt to make sprats of his size flounce desperately, in the mere hope of proving themselves whales after all, if it's only to their miserable selves. Never mind; he can't break my tackle; and besides, that gripe of the hand seemed to indicate that the poor wretch was beat, and thought himself let off easily—as indeed he is. We'll hope so. Now, zoophytes, for ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... which, from his known prowess in the latter accomplishment, the youthful aspirant had no necessity to detail in the ears of his mistress. She liked not the coarse blunt manner of her gallant, nor the hard gripe and iron tramp for which ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... the effects of sin. It will pinch and gripe the conscience, and make the heart of a gracious soul sick—(Mason). Matthew, in being admitted a member of the church, represented by the house Beautiful and its happy family, had to relate his experience, and this brought to his recollection ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... was nobody's business to see to 'em. I reckon Master Tom told Harry to feed 'em, but there's no countin' on Harry; he's an offal creatur as iver come about the primises, he is. He remembers nothing but his own inside—an' I wish it'ud gripe him." ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... the flap, Against the obdurate pane, of thy small wing;— He hears thee not—he heeds not—but, at morn, The ice-enamoured schoolboy, early afoot, Finds thy small bulk beneath the alder stump, Thy bright eyes closed, and tiny talons clench'd, Stiff in the gripe of death. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... of any people I'd rather have on it. But what I want to gripe about is calling our new home world such a horrible name as 'Fuel Bin,' as though it were a wood-box or a coal-scuttle or something. And just think of the complexes it would set up in those super-children we're going to ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith

... Munkir, [302] who were come to question me; and I likewise heard the rustling of a rope, as if some one had let it down there. I was wondering, and began to feel about me on the ground, when some bones came into my gripe. ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli

... had passed in far less time than is required to narrate it, and the astonishment of the Carlists at their comrade's terror and this sudden attack, was such, that, although men of action and energy, they were for a moment paralysed, and thought not of rescuing their friend from the iron gripe in which he was held. Already his eyes were bloodshot, his face purple, and his tongue protruding from his mouth, when a gendarme came up, and aided by half-a-dozen of those agents who, in plain clothes, half-spy and half-policeman, are to be found ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... perished! —Save one who, stout as Julius Caesar, Swam across and lived to carry (As he, the manuscript he cherished) To Rat-land home his commentary: Which was, "At the first shrill notes of the pipe, I heard a sound as of scraping tripe, And putting apples, wondrous ripe, Into a cider-press's gripe: 130 And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards, And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards, And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks, And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks: And it seemed as if a voice (Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery Is breathed) called out, ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning

... bend to her. He glared on both the ladies. He looked as if, had either of them been his wife, he would have made a glorious husband at the moment. In each hand he seemed as if he would have liked to clutch one and gripe her ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... their homage to the lofty gallows, And he himself lies in captivity. Be rul'd by me, and we will rule the realm: In any case take heed of childish fear, For now we hold an old wolf by the ears, That, if he slip, will seize upon us both, And gripe the sorer, being grip'd himself. Think therefore, madam, that imports us much To erect your son with all the speed we may, And that I be protector over him: For our behoof, 'twill bear the greater sway Whenas a king's name shall be under-writ. ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe

... all is safe! He will not again return; the dead sleeps without a witness.—I may lay this working brain upon the bosom that loves me, and not start at night and think that the soft hand around my neck is the hangman's gripe. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various

... more general outcry than any which had been elicited even by the religious persecution. There were many inhabitants who were earnest and sincere Catholics, and who therefore considered themselves safe from the hangman's hands, while there were none who could hope to escape the gripe of the new tax-gatherers. Yet the Governor was not the man to be daunted by the probable unpopularity of the measure. Courage he possessed in more than mortal proportion. He seemed to have set himself to the task of ascertaining the exact ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the crowne: As Caesar to his souldiers, so say I: Those that hate me, will I learn to loath. Give me a look, that when I bend the browes, Pale death may walke in furrowes of my face: A hand, that with a graspe may gripe the world, An eare, to heare what my detractors say, A royall seate, a scepter and a crowne: That those which doe behold them may become As men that stand and gase against the Sunne. The plot is laide, and things shall come to passe, ...
— Massacre at Paris • Christopher Marlowe

... to grin. I didn't know the reason, but whatever reason they had, it must gripe the devil out of them to be unable ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith

... which breeds good if patience thou can learn; * Be calm soured, scaping anguish-draughts that gripe and bren: Know, that if patience with good grace thou dare refuse, * With ill-graced patience thou shalt ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... with few and brief interruptions, to the close of the Empire. The reluctant victim struggles in his captor's grasp, and now and then for a short space shakes it off; but only to be seized again with a fiercer gripe, until at length his struggles cease, and he resigns himself to a fate which he has come to regard as inevitable. During the last fifty years of the Empire, from B.C. 650 to B.C. 625, the province of Babylon was almost as tranquil as ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... drowned wretch from extinction, and warm the flickering spirit into steady flame, such pain it is, the blood forcing its way along the dry channels, and the heavily-ticking nerves, and the sullen heart—the struggle of life and death in him—grim death relaxing his gripe; such pain it is, he cries out no thanks to them that pull him by inches from the depths of the dead river. And he who has thought a love extinct, and is surprised by the old fires, and the old tyranny, he rebels, and strives to fight clear of the cloud of forgotten sensations that settle on him; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... "Nawth'n scum," Made these "gen'l'men" turn as white As a head o' hair in a single night! Cleaned their army completely out, (We're going to give that another wipe!) On the double-quick, by the shortest route,— Wrung their stronghold from their gripe,— Brought their garrison right to taw, And made 'em get down to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... veriest poverty; but still it is half a step from it. If all that I can urge be ineffectual, let her who seldom calls to you in vain, let the call of pride prevail with you. You know how you feel at the iron gripe of ruthless oppression: you know how you bear the galling sneer of contumelious greatness. I hold you out the conveniences, the comforts of life, independence, and character, on the one hand; I tender you civility, dependence, and wretchedness, on the other. I will not insult your understanding ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... rend it with my nails to naught, Or mount the top with my aspiring wings, Although my downfall be the deepest hell.... Give me a look, that, when I bend the brows, Pale death may walk in furrows of my face; A hand that with a grasp may gripe the world; An ear to hear what my detractors say; A royal seat, a sceptre, and a crown; That those which do behold them may become As men that stand and ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... thine own! No maiden's hand is round thee thrown! That desperate grasp thy frame might feel Through bars of brass and triple steel! They tug, they strain! down, down they go, The Gael above, Fitz-James below. The Chieftain's gripe his throat compressed, His knee was planted on his breast; His clotted locks he backward threw, Across his brow his hand he drew, From blood and mist to clear his sight, Then gleamed aloft his dagger bright! But hate and fury ill supplied The stream of life's exhausted tide, And all too ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... brigantine, her sails close-reefed, tossed among the savage billows at the mercy of the storm. A heavy sea rolled down upon her, and threw her on her side. The surges broke over her, and, clinging with desperate gripe to spars and cordage, the drenched voyagers gave up all for lost. At length she righted. The gale subsided, the wind changed, and the crazy, water-logged vessel again bore ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... the rags in the lime-juice twelve hours. This process is called bleaching. When the rags come out they are far from white, however. They are of a uniform dirty brown hue. But the colors have lost their gripe. When the rags shall have been submitted to the grinding and washing in pure water, as we shall see them presently, they are easily whitened. The lime bath is the purgatory of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various

... fair Freedom's band, Far other was the immortal stand, When Hampden fought for thee: They snatched from rapine's gripe thy spoils, The fruits and prize of glorious toils, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... dying grasp held the poor girl as if she were wedged in an engine of torture. She pressed her lips together and sat still. The inexorable hand held her tighter and tighter, until she felt as if her own slender fingers would be crushed in its gripe. It was one of the tortures of the Inquisition she was suffering, and she could not stir from her place. Then, in her great anguish, she, too, cast her eyes upon that dying figure, and, looking upon its pierced hands and feet and side and lacerated forehead, she felt that she also must suffer ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... and his cunning, because of his gripe and his paw, In all that the Law leaveth open, the word of the Head ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling

... into the inner room. The Baron, in his boots, lay upon the bed, his body bent almost double by the unrelenting gripe of a distressful pain. His teeth were tightly clenched, and the rigid muscles around the mouth distorted the natural expression of his face. Every few seconds a prolonged groan escaped him. His fine eyes rolled piteously. Anon, he would press both hands upon his abdomen ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various

... comes over her bows and floods her forward deck; she braces herself, every rod and rivet and timber seems to lend its support; you almost expect to see the wooden walls of your room grow rigid with muscular contraction; she trembles from stem to stern, she recovers, she breaks the gripe of her antagonist, and, rising up, shakes the sea from her with a kind of gleeful wrath; I hear the torrents of water rush along the lower decks, and, finding a means of escape, pour back into the sea, ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... restore the fallen fortunes of his ancient house, and repossess himself of the long alienated lands that surrounded the dismal wastes of the mouldering hall. And now to hear that those lands were getting into the inexorable gripe of Levy—tears of bitterness stood in ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... part is called the Ploughes principall hale, and doth belong to the left hand being a long bent peece of woode, some what strong in the midst, and so slender at the vpper end that a man may easily gripe it, which being fixed with the ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham

... have Jacko by the collar, I can make him bite you; but, if you have Jacko, you can make him bite me." Just such a creature was Barere. In the hands of the Girondists he would have been eager to proscribe the Jacobins; he was just as ready, in the gripe of the Jacobins, to proscribe the Girondists. On the fidelity of such a man the heads of the Mountain could not, of course, reckon; but they valued their conquest as the very easy and not very delicate lover in Congreve's lively song valued ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... With thieves and perjured fellows they associate; At courts they inquire after feasts; Every senseless word they bring forward; Every deadly sin they praise; Every vile course of life they lead; Through every village, town, and country they stroll; Concerning the gripe of death they think not; Neither lodging nor charity do they give; Indulging in victuals to excess. Psalms or prayers they do not use, Tithes or offerings to God they do not pay, On holidays or Sundays they do not worship; Vigils or festivals they do not heed. The birds do fly, ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest

... charged,—had they understood him, they would have seen in him a young man in whom the fire of youth glowed not the less ardently for the veil of reserve that covered it; who would shrink from no danger, but would not court it in bravado; and who would cling with an invincible tenacity of gripe to any purpose which he might espouse. There is good reason to think that he had come to Canada with purposes already conceived, and that he was ready to avail himself of any stepping-stone which might help to realize them. Queylus, Superior ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... The sack of an old city in its time, The bursting in of mercenaries and bigots tumultuously and disorderly, Roar, flames, blood, drunkenness, madness, Goods freely rifled from houses and temples, screams of women in the gripe of brigands, Craft and thievery of camp-followers, men running, old persons despairing, The hell of war, the cruelties of creeds, The list of all executive deeds and words just or unjust, The power of ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... knelt. I only tightened my grasp of the brute's throat. His eyes were already starting from his head, and his tongue was hanging out. My anxious hope was, that, even after they had killed me, they would be unable to undo my gripe of his throat, before the monster was past breathing. I therefore threw all my will, and force, and purpose, into the grasping hand. I remember no blow. A faintness came over ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... her in savage gripe. "What," cried I, shaking her to and fro despite my weakness, "what ha' you ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... had finished it was, "Haul the seine-boat alongside—pump out what water's left." Then, "Shift that painter and hook on the big painter. Drop her astern and give her plenty of line. Where's the dorymen? Where's Tommie and Joe? Haul the dories into the hatch, Tommie, and make 'em fast. Gripe 'em good while you're at it. Clear the deck of all loose gear—put it below, all of it—keelers, everything. Maybe 'twon't be much of a blow, but there's no telling—it may. She mayn't be the kind that washes everything over, but put it all ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly

... refuge in the water. A boat now put off, and soon overtaking the tired animal, he was tied securely. When towed ashore, one rope was fastened round his horns, and another to his fore-foot, each held by a negro, while a third took a strong gripe of his tail. In this manner, they led and drove him along, the fellow behind occasionally biting the beast's tail, to quicken his motions; until at length the poor creature was made fast to an anchor on the beach, there ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... Dost thou, fond man, believe thyself secure Because thou'rt honest, and because thou'rt poor? Dost thou on law and liberty depend? Turn, turn thy eyes, and view thy injured friend. 80 Art thou beyond the ruffian gripe of Power, When Wilkes, prejudged, is sentenced to the Tower? Dost thou by privilege exemption claim, When privilege is little more than name? Or to prerogative (that glorious ground On which state scoundrels oft have safety found) Dost thou pretend, and there a sanction ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... my view, Ye still are left to hear my last adieu! My friends, my children, gor'd with many a wound, Whose mangled bodies strew the ensanguin'd ground, To parch and stiffen in the blaze of day, Consign'd to vultures, and to wolves a prey, Your toils are past; no more ye wake to feel Lust's savage gripe, or rapine's reeking steel! And Thou, to whom my wedded faith was given, On earth my solace, and my hope in heaven, Approv'd in manhood, as in youth ador'd, Belov'd while living, as in death deplor'd, O stay thy flight! Around this dreary shore A moment hover, and we part no more— ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... while it scourged us, cut off the sources of resuscitation! No! This damp of death is the mere effusion of British amity! We sink under the pressure of their support! We writhe under their perfidious gripe! They have embraced us with their protecting arms, and lo! these are the ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... finger lie passively between his nippers, as if it were a bit of stick or tangle; when, apparently deeming it such, he would be sure to let it go; whereas, on the least attempt to withdraw it, he would at once straiten his gripe, and not again relax it for mayhap half an hour. In dealing with the lobster, on the other hand, the fisher had to beware that he did not depend too much on the hold he had got of the creature, if it was merely a hold of one of the great claws. ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... them. Women shouted their neighborhood jargon from windows flung momentarily open. Poverty scuttled along close to the scant shelter of these houses. An old man, with a beard to his chest, paused in a doorway to cough, and it was like the gripe-gripe of a saw with its teeth in hard wood. A woman sold apples from a stoop, the form of a child showing through her shawl. Yet Mrs. ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... those of Crete would curse any one, they prayed the gods to engage him in some ill custom. But the principal effect of its power is, so to seize and ensnare us, that it is hardly in us to disengage ourselves from its gripe, or so to come to ourselves, as to consider of and to weigh the things it enjoins. To say the truth, by reason that we suck it in with our milk, and that the face of the world presents itself in this posture to our first ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... vanished in a moment before her sympathy for her friend. She darted from the house, and rushed towards the dog to drag him off the defenceless idiot, calling him by his name in a tone of anger and dislike. He left the fool, and, springing at Elsie, seized her by the arm above the elbow with such a gripe that, in the midst of her agony, she fancied she heard the bone crack. But she uttered no cry, for the most apprehensive are sometimes the most courageous. Just then, however, her former lover was coming along the street, and, catching a glimpse of what had happened, was on the spot in ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald

... strongly impressed with the beauties of the countries I had seen. I could have wished to end my days in those charming solitudes, at a distance from the tumultuous hurry of the world, far from the pinching gripe of avarice and deceit. There it is, said I to myself, one relishes a thousand innocent delights, and which are repeated with a satisfaction ever new. It is there one lives exempt from the assaults of censure, detraction, and calumny. In those delightsome meadows, which often extend far out of ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... to burst, that perchance if they should keep me here a captive for M. le Comte's arrival he might really follow to see what had become of me. I turned sick with the fear of it, and resolved on the truth. But Gaspard's last gullet-gripe had robbed me of the power to speak. I could only pant and choke. As I struggled painfully for wind, the door was flung open before a tall young man in black. Through the haze that hung before my vision I saw the soldier seize him as he crossed the threshold. ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... (Intervention by Hon'ble Chairwoman, reminding me that these were not in disputation.) I bow to correction, and kiss the rod by summing up the gist of my argument, viz., that it is nonsensical idiotcy to suppose that a woman can be the equivalent of a man either in intellectual gripe, in bodily robustiousness, or in physical courage. Of the last, I shall afford an unanswerable proof from my own person. It is notorious, urbi et orbi, that every feminine person will flee in panicstricken dismay from the ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... Northwind's hurrying keels. And not the pines alone; all sights and sounds To my world-seeking heart paid fealty, And catered for it as the Cretan bees Brought honey to the baby Jupiter, Who in his soft hand crushed a violet, 181 Godlike foremusing the rough thunder's gripe; Then did I entertain the poet's song, My great Idea's guest, and, passing o'er That iron bridge the Tuscan built to hell, I heard Ulysses tell of mountain-chains Whose adamantine links, his manacles, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... of a succession of visiters, her house was deserted; and, at the expiration of the year, the proud fair, awakened from her golden dream by the clamours of her importunate creditors, found herself without one friend to rescue her valuables from their rapacious gripe. ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... still for nearly half a minute without uttering a syllable; at length he seized Dandy by the arm, which he pressed with the gripe of Hercules, for he was a man of huge size ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... of Prudent-Thrifty, who dwelt with Mr. Mind, (for Thrift left children with Mr. Mind, when he was also committed to prison, and their names were Gripe and Rake-All; these he begat of Mr. Mind's bastard daughter, whose name was Mrs. Hold-fast- Bad;)—I say, when his children perceived how the Lord Willbewill had served them that dwelt with him, what do they but, lest they should drink of the same cup, endeavour to make their escape. But Mr. Mind, ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan

... no abundant thews and wide-spreading shoulders. They exhibited, rather, an elemental economy of nature, such as the cave-men must have exhibited. But there was strength in those meagre bodies, the ferocious, primordial strength to clutch and gripe and tear and rend. When they spring upon their human prey they are known even to bend the victim backward and double its body till the back is broken. They possess neither conscience nor sentiment, and ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... in stride and unbroken in nature. Alas! the curves of beauty were concealed by the cumbrous MACHILLAS of the Spanish saddle, which levels all equine distinctions. The single rein lay loosely on the cruel bit that can gripe, and if need be, crush the ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... seized his mail bags and dextrously got from his saddle to the stage, and the next instant he held the reins in his firm gripe. ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham

... answer my question!' exclaimed her tormentor; and he attempted to extort the confession by shaking her, and remorselessly crushing her slight arms in the gripe of ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... closing scene. It was then I saw the young girls in the act of being hurried off by their captors. It was then my heart was wrung, by the spectacle of Gabriella struggling in the arms of the chief. I was helpless to interfere. I was prostrate upon the earth, and held fast in the gripe of two brawny savages—one kneeling on each side of me. I expected them at every instant to put an end to my life. I awaited the final blow—either the stroke of a tomahawk or the thrust of a spear. I only wondered they were delaying my death. My wonders ceased, when I at length got my eyes ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... a furnace: mentally, I still possessed my soul, and with it the certainty of ultimate safety. The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter—often an unconscious, but still a truthful interpreter—in the eye. My eye rose to his; and while I looked in his fierce face I gave an involuntary sigh; his gripe was painful, and ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... shrewd casuists know too well that by such frank confession, they would soon lose their hold on Catholic populations, especially on women, by whom, through confession, they rule the world. They much prefer to keep their gripe on benighted minds, frightened consciences, and trembling souls. No wonder, then, that they fully endorse and confirm the decisions of the councils of Latran and Trent ordering "that all sins must be confessed such as God knows them." No wonder that they try their ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... necessary, being the result of the arrangement of the particles,—the flowering of the mechanism of the shell; or like the beauty of health which comes out of and reaches back again to the bones and the digestion. There is no grace like the grace of strength. What sheer muscular gripe and power lie back of the firm, delicate notes of the great violinist! "Wit," says Heine,—and the same thing is true of beauty,—"isolated, is worthless. It is only endurable when it ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs

... for David's victories, startled the king for the first time with a revelation of the national feeling. His unslumbering suspicion "eyed David from that day." Rage and terror threw him again into the gripe of his evil spirit, and in his paroxysm he flings his heavy spear, the symbol of his royalty, at the lithe harper, with fierce vows of murder. The failure of his attempt to kill David seems to have aggravated his dread of him as bearing a charm which won all ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren

... ye know the accursed thing And know it accurst, for the Gift is yours Of Sight where the prophets of blindness sing By the brink of death. And the Gift endures; Ye shall see the last of the sharpened lies That rivet privilege's gripe. Be still, then, ye with the opened eyes, Come away from the thing ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... the Atlantic tides, Loading the gallant decks which once Roared a defiance to our guns, With peaceful store; Symbol of peace, their vessel rides!* O'er English waves float Star and Stripe, And firm their friendly anchors gripe The ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray

... of the family to see their reverend teacher was heartfelt and unreserved. A vigorous gripe of the hand, by the elder dragged him into the house, and a sentence of unusual length, from his better half, assured him of that welcome which the blunter action of her venerable husband had already sufficiently declared. Nor was the young adventurer who ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... we drew nearer we saw that it had also an extraordinary long snout. It seemed in no degree afraid of True, and he evidently considered it a formidable antagonist. Presently it lifted itself up on its hind legs, when True sprang back just in time to avoid a gripe of its claws. Still the creature, undaunted by our appearance, made at him, when, seeing that he was really in danger, John and I rushed forward. We then discovered the creature to be a huge ant-eater, which, though it had no teeth, was armed with ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... not failed me, I might have quoted that line often and appropriately enough. But every agent in the "robbery"—from the vainglorious Virginian, my chief captor, down to the smooth Secretary, whose velvet gripe was so loth to unclose—seemed provokingly bent on exaggerating the importance of their prize. Perhaps the very interest felt in my release, and the exertions unsparingly used—especially in Baltimore—to secure it, strengthened ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... his love, and died for thee? Is not heaven worth thy affection? O poor man! which is strongest thinkest thou, God or thee? If thou art not able to overcome him, thou art a fool for standing out against him; Matt. v. 25, 26. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." He will gripe hard; his fist is stronger than a lion's paw; take heed of him, he will be angry if you despise his Son; and will you stand guilty in your trespasses, when he offereth you his grace and favour? Exod. xxxiv. ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan

... Prisoners-of-War Clearing-House in Copenhagen or the Vatican. Peace of mind returned a step nearer each time that she shook her head and murmured, "Yes, we tried that. It was no good, though." Then his growing security was checked by a gripe of conscience; he felt like a murderer who stole furtively into the woods by night to see whether prowling animal or pursuing man had disturbed the grave. Well, at least another week had passed. . . . But in a week's time he must undergo the ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna

... creature staggered and sank to the ground, thus allowing Tom to get back his club. Before, however, either of them could repeat the blow, the seal, recovering, again dashed at Tom, who had to leap out of its way, narrowly escaping an ugly gripe on the leg. Willy had again loaded, but was afraid to fire lest he might hit either of the seamen. The seal now stopped, seeming doubtful at which of his assailants he should next rush. When they stopped ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston

... sloping roof, the tiles of which crush beneath them, at a hundred feet from the ground, they struggled without mercy, without respite, until at last the soldier felt his strength give way, and endeavoured to escape from the gripe of his adversary. Then, the Federal—the person from whom I learnt this was at an opposite window and lost not a single one of their movements—the Federal drew a knife from his pocket and prepared himself to strike his half-prostrate antagonist, who, feeling that ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... I feel, however, as if this were their last day, and that to-morrow would have the honour to see me abroad. I have had no fever, and no physician, and no important malady; but cold has fastened upon cold, so as utterly to imprison me. La gripe,(204) however, I escaped, so has Alex, and our maid and helpers—and M. d'Arblay, who caught it latterly in his excursions to Paris, had it so slightly that but for the fright attached to the seizure (which I thought would almost have demolished me at first, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... smoked was clear, for the old lady had already gone through the process of unrolling one of the small cartouche-like cigars. Having re-rolled it between her fingers, she placed it within the gripe of a pair of ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid

... it comes to talk thereof, they strive in vain for adequate power of language. The best words and the strongest sentences will not come. These demand the clarion roundness and ring essentially masculine—very virile indeed. The muscular gripe of a man—not the white, tapering fingers of any maiden—held the pen which wrote so gloriously of Livingstone's terrible riding, of Royston Keene's bloody sabre charges. We know it by unerring instinct, as we could tell a morsel of the smooth cheek of the damsel ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... And my strong obligation to you voice. Our noble functions must be so performed, That happy impress graves the rabble mind But thus to meet these vultures with a smile Doth like a colic make mine honor gripe, Machiavelian methods were in sooth The better physic for the patients' needs And I like good physician must the probe Thrust in and sound the ugly, gaping wound. Quezox: Most noble sire, if I may caution speak It were to all ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)

... both, and bade them good-night. Weir could not speak a word; he could hardly even lift his eyes. But a red spot glowed on each of his pale cheeks, making him look very like his daughter Catherine, and I could see Miss Oldcastle wince and grow red too with the gripe he gave her hand. But she smiled ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald

... one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all her productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain. The crimson hand expressed the ineludible gripe in which mortality clutches the highest and purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred with the lowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom their visible frames return to dust. In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of his wife's liability ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... imposed (1830). The aborigines possessed large packs, from fifty to three hundred. On the destruction of the aboriginal tribes, these animals escaped, hunted in large numbers, and committed great havoc, among the flocks: farmers lost five hundred sheep in a season. By a single gripe these wild marauders destroyed a sheep, and a few minutes were sufficient to strew the downs with dead. A tax was imposed, from 5s. to L1 each. Large establishments required many sheep and watch dogs, and the cost amounted to L8 or ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... that Two-Shoes was not her real name. No; her father's name was Meanwell, and he was for many years a considerable farmer in the parish where Margery was born; but by the misfortunes which he met with in business, and the wicked persecutions of Sir Timothy Gripe, and an overgrown farmer called Graspall, he was effectually ruined. These men turned the farmer, his wife, Little Margery, and her brother out of doors, without any of the necessaries of life ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... cockatrice's dead-killing eye He rouseth up himself and makes a pause; While she, the picture of pure piety, Like a white hind under the gripe's sharp claws, Pleads, in a wilderness where are no laws, To the rough beast that knows no gentle right, Nor aught ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]

... from my hold, and securing me, notwithstanding my struggles, in his own Herculean gripe, he called out, 'Take the bent, Mr Rashleigh—make ae pair o' legs worth twa pair o' hands; ye hae done that ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop

... the man, who, when a gloomy band Of vile excisemen threatened all the land, Help'd to deliver from their harpy gripe The cheerful bottle and the social pipe. O rare Ben Bradley! may for this the bowl, Still unexcised, rejoice thy honest soul! May still the best in Christendom for this Cleave to thy stopper, and ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson

... sudden gripe. "Hold my hand firm. Keep me in my balance," he whispered, and throwing himself over to the whole extent of his body, and long right arm, managed to catch hold of James, who ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

... They hail'd him father to a line of kings: Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown, And put a barren sceptre in my gripe, Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand, No son of mine succeeding. If't be so, For Banquo's issue have I ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... both, did declare.—When on his death-bed, he was under considerable darkness about his state, and said to Mr. John Carstair's brother, "For all that I have preached or written, there is but one scripture I can remember or dare gripe unto; tell me if dare lay the weight of my salvation upon it, Whosoever cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out."—Mr. Carstairs answered, "You may depend on it, though you had a thousand salvations at hazard." When he was drawing towards his departure in a great conflict ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... Bartlett knew her. He might ask her if she wanted the groceries charged before she got the money out to pay for them. And good-by then to Jerry's secret charge account. "You said running errands was my chore," he reminded his mother. "You haven't heard me gripe about having to go to the ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson

... of Dryden and Pope is irresistible. What follows? For having contented our liking, we let them do any thing that they like. Poor Og! poor Shadwell! poor Bayes, poor Cibber! He sprawls and kicks in the gripe of the giant, and we—as if we had sat at bull-fights and the shows of gladiators—when the blood trickles we are ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... and said he would first bite out the minister's finger-nails,—a form of torture then in vogue among the northern Indians, both converts and heathen. Williams offered him a hand and invited him to begin; on which he gave the thumb-nail a gripe with his teeth, and then let it go, saying, "No good minister, bad as the devil." The failure seems to have discouraged him, for he made no further attempt to convert ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... dirt side, placed next the skin. She could scarcely have worn this turf when she was up and around the house, could she? She must have had it placed upon her while she was in bed. Josselyn said in his "New England Rarities" that, "to wear the skin of a Gripe dressed with the doun on" would cure pain and coldness of the stomach. Thus did like cure like. A "Restorative Bag" of herbs and spices heated in "boyl'd Vinegar" is asserted to be "comfortable." "It must be as hot as ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... probably. Next to Captain Kyd, I don't suppose there has been a more successful man out on the Spanish Main than he was; and I should not be surprised but what he will take to the same calling again, if England once becomes too hot for him. I think differently now that I see death coming on to gripe hold of me, to what I did when I was in health and strength, and I tell you, John Deane, you are fortunate in getting clear of him. When he first met you, he wished to get you to join his gang, thinking that you would be ready enough to do so from the way in which you ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... cut off a bit of my tail, to make it appear the cat had eat me. He took me home, and called his dog into the garden, where he let me go, and sent the dog after me. The dog presently caught me, and lucky it was, he did not kill me the first gripe; for his master (seeing he caught me so soon, as he wanted to have had some fun, as he termed it) threw a stone at him, which hit him on the head, and laid him flat on the ground. I seized the opportunity, ...
— The Adventures of a Squirrel, Supposed to be Related by Himself • Anonymous

... Arme for fight, the foe at hand, Whom fled we thought, will save us long pursuit This day, fear not his flight; so thick a Cloud He comes, and settl'd in his face I see 540 Sad resolution and secure: let each His Adamantine coat gird well, and each Fit well his Helme, gripe fast his orbed Shield, Born eevn or high, for this day will pour down, If I conjecture aught, no drizling showr, But ratling storm of Arrows barbd with fire. So warnd he them aware themselves, and soon In order, quit of all impediment; Instant without disturb they took Allarm, And onward move ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... said the Earl, rising, "and I will not fail, my lord, as soon as you are safe, to use every influence in my power for the purpose of obtaining your pardon, which will be much more easily gained when you are beyond the power of the English law, than while you are actually within its gripe." ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James

... lit up with much clearer intelligence than frequently falls to the share of persons of his age and opportunities. The father and son were greatly attached to each other; and it was chiefly the hope of bequeathing Les Pres, free from the usurious gripe of Destouches, to his boy, that encouraged the elder Delessert to persevere in his well-nigh hopeless husbandry. Two years thus passed, and matters were beginning to assume a less dreary aspect, thanks chiefly to the notary's not having made any demand ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various

... and I was the better chap until my friend reached his eighteenth year, when the heavy metal of the young Dutch giant told in our struggles. After that period was past, I found Dirck too much for me, in a close gripe, though my extraordinary activity rendered the inequality less apparent than it might otherwise have proved. I ought not to apply the term of "extraordinary" to anything about myself, but the word escaped me unconsciously, and I shall let it stand. One thing I will ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... meant once more to meet the enemy in battle. The closing eye of the old warrior kindled with martial fire at the words. He partly raised himself in bed, clinched his withered hand as if he felt within his gripe that sword which waved in triumph before the walls of Port Christina, and giving a grim smile of exultation, sank back upon his pillow, and expired. Thus died Peter Stuyvesant, a valiant soldier, a loyal subject, an upright governor, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... of his race, he is uprooting a huge tree, all unconscious that another figure is laboring at his side. It is not Eve, who sits in the background with her first-born at her breast and her distaff by her side,—but Death, who, with a huge lever in his bony gripe, goes at his work with a fierce energy which puts the efforts of his muscular companion to shame. The people of Holbein's day not only saw in this subject the beginning of that toil which is the lot of humankind, but, as they looked upon the common ancestors of all men, laboring ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... think? In one of his novels, published a few months ago, he has the insolence to insult Hungary in the presence of one of her sons. He makes his great braggart, Coeur de Lion, fling a Magyar over his head. Ha! it was well for Richard that he never felt the gripe of a Hungarian. I wish the braggart could have felt the gripe of me, who am 'a' magyarok kozt legkissebb,' the least among the Magyars. I do hate that Scott, and all his vile gang of Lowlanders and Highlanders. The black corps, the fekete regiment ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... thrive, and in the way of preferment, who but he? In the vulgar opinion, if a man be wealthy, no matter how he gets it, of what parentage, how qualified, how virtuously endowed, or villainously inclined; let him be a bawd, a gripe, an usurer, a villain, a pagan, a barbarian, a wretch, [2209]Lucian's tyrant, "on whom you may look with less security than on the sun;" so that he be rich (and liberal withal) he shall be honoured, admired, adored, reverenced, and highly [2210]magnified. "The rich is had in reputation because ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... alliance with many evil things, may strive to counteract this progressive self emancipation from cruel falsehoods and superstitions, but in vain. The terms of salvation are seen lying in the righteous will of a gracious God, not in the heartless caprice of a priesthood nor in the iron gripe of a set of dogmas. The old priestly monopoly over the way to heaven has been taken off in the knowledge of the enlightened present, and, for all who have unfettered feet to walk with, the passage to God is now across a free bridge. The ancient ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger



Words linked to "Gripe" :   crab, objection, bellyache, bitch, kick, beef, squawk, quetch, plain, sound off, holler, complain, grouse



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