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To hold firmly; to hold fast by grasping or embracing tightly. "Clinch the pointed spear." Dryden.

A species of raspberry (Rubus Chamæmerous) growing in the northern regions, and bearing edible, amber-colored fruit.

Shaped like a club; grasped like, or used as, a club. Skelton.

A gripe or clinching with, or as with, the fingers or claws; seizure; grasp. "The clutch of poverty." Cowper. An expiring clutch at popularity. Carlyle. But Age, with his stealing steps, Hath clawed me in his clutch. Shak.

To take into the mind; to grasp with the understanding; to apprehend the meaning of; to understand. At a loss to comprehend the question. W. Irwing. Great things doeth he, which we can not comprehend. Job. xxxvii. 5.

The capacity of the mind to perceive and understand; the power, act, or process of grasping with the intellect; perception; understanding; as, a comprehension of abstract principles.

An avaricious, grasping fellow; a miser; a niggard; a churl. A gray-headed curmudgeon of a negro. W. Irving.

g to elude; using arts or deception to escape; adroitly escaping or evading; eluding the grasp; fallacious. Elusive of the bridal day, she gives Fond hopes to all, and all with hopes deceives. Pope. -- E*lu"sive*ly, adv. -- E*lu"sive*ness, n.

Honestly; properly. Such means of comfort or even luxury, as lay fairly within their grasp. Hawthorne.

Anything employed to smooth, polish, or rasp, literally or figuratively. Mock the nice touches of the critic's file. Akenside.

the closed hand, especially as clinched tightly for the purpose of striking a blow. Who grasp the earth and heaven with my fist. Herbert.

A single-cut file for smoothing; a tool used by shoemakers for rasping off pegs inside a shoe.

A pair of pinchers, or tongs; an instrument for grasping, holding firmly, or exerting traction upon, bodies which it would be inconvenient or impracticable to seize with the fingers, especially one for delicate operations, as those of watchmakers, surgeons, accoucheurs, dentists, etc.

The line ofgreatest circumference of a brilliant-cut diamond, at which it is grasped by the setting. See Illust. of Brilliant. Knight.

To grope with the hands, as in the dark. [Scot.] To glaum at, to grasp or snatch at; to aspire to. Wha glaum'd at kingdoms three. Burns.

A sudden grasp or seizure.

Grasp; reach. [Obs.] A vein of gold ore within one spade's griff. Holland.

An energetic or tenacious grasp; a holding fast; strength in grasping.

Grasp; seizure; fast hold; clutch. A barren scepter in my gripe. Shak.

A grasp; a gripe. [Obs.] Spenser.