Search the Dictionary

r embracing with the fingers or arms; to catch to take possession of. Thy hand is made to grasp a palmer's staff. Shak.

Capable of being grasped.

One who grasps or seizes; one who catches or holds.

Avaricious; greedy of gain; covetous; close; miserly; as, he is a grasping man. -- Grasp"ing*ly, adv. -- Grasp"ing*ness, n.

Without a grasp; relaxed. From my graspless hand Drop friendship's precious pearls. Coleridge.

To grasp; to grip. [R.] Spenser.

The act of grasping with the intellect; the contemplation of things, without affirming, denying, or passing any judgment; intellection; perception. Simple apprehension denotes no more than the soul's naked intellection of an object. Glanvill.

tion; to rouse; to excite; as, to arouse one from sleep; to arouse the dormant faculties. Grasping his spear, forth issued to arouse His brother, mighty sovereign on the host. Cowper. No suspicion was aroused. Merivale.

To catch; to grasp; to insnare. [Obs.] Chaucer.

abor. -- To carry off (a) To remove to a distance. (b) To bear away as from the power or grasp of others. (c) To remove from life; as, the plague carried off thousands. -- To carry on (a) To carry farther; to advance, or help forward; to continue; as, to carry on a design. (b) To manage, conduct, or prosecute; as, to…

To lay hold on; to seize, especially with the hand; to grasp (anything) in motion, with the effect of holding; as, to catch a ball.

g againts a preceding joint or a projecting part of it, so that the whole may be ised for grasping, as the claw of a crab; pincherlike.

able pieces of lead, or other soft material, to cover the jaws of a vise and enable it to grasp without bruising.

To inclose and hold in the hand or with the arms; to grasp; to embrace.

One of a pair of organs used by the male for grasping the female among many of the Crustacea.

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

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.