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. Shak.
To lay hold of with the mind; to become thoroughly acquainted or conversant with; to comprehend.
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. Shak. To grasp at, to catch at; to try to seize; as, Alexander grasped at universal empire,
A gripe or seizure of the hand; a seizure by embrace, or infolding in the arms. "The grasps of love." Shak.
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. Shak.
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. Z. Taylor.
The handle of a sword or of an oar.
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