death grip

Noun

death grip (plural death grips)

1. An extremely tight grip.
   • The walker held with a death grip to his stick lest he drop it down the hill.
   • Cunningham then declared […] that he was at Mr. Lyneall's, and saw Robinson snap his pistol, which did not go off; that he heard a voice from some one, saying fire! and also heard a shot, but did not know who fired; that Condron, the approver, afterwards told him he had no pistol, as he dropped it...1792, “Domestic Intelligence: Dublin, Sept. 7, 1792”, in Walker's Hibernian Magazine or Compendium of Entertaining Knowledge for the Year 1792. Part II, Dublin: Printed by Joseph Walker, No. 79, Dame...
   1. The grip of something dead or dying.
      • I gently tore the bloodied piece of paper out from her death grip.
      • The death grip of the Umbrella Ant soldiers is so tenacious that the natives often use them to suture wounds.1940, Victor Wolfgang von Hagen, Jungle in the Clouds
   2. A grip that kills.
      • The wolf held the chicken in a death grip until it stopped moving.
      • At the outset Mahmoud commanded Mehemet to withdraw his forces and to lay his grievances before his Sultan. He might as well have ordered the lion to loose his death-grip on the roe.1912, Spencer Walpole, A History of England from the Conclusion of the Great War in 1815, revised edition, volume IV, London: Longmans, Green and Co., →OCLC, page 280
   3. (slang) A tight grip on the penis during masturbation.
2. A perilous situation or stalemate where failure or death is imminent.
   • The armies came together in a death grip at the bottom of the valley.
   • [O]ne Confederate in the death grip had seized the sharp edge of a huge rock, and with feet held fast in a cleft of the rock above, hung head downwards between the two.1888, John L. Smith, History of the Corn Exchange Regiment, Philadelphia, Pa., page 257