Word.ws English Dictionary

get a grip

get a grip verb: to grip, as in: to take hold of, as with the hand.

Verb

get a grip (third-person singular simple present gets a grip, present participle getting a grip, simple past got a grip, past participle (UK) got a grip or (US) gotten a grip)

  1. To grip, as in: to take hold of, as with the hand.
    • But the bannock ran […] down the road to the next house, and in and snug by the fireside. The folk were just sitting down to their soup, and the goodwife scraping the pot. "Look," quoth she, "there's a wee bannock come in to warm itself at our fireside."
      "Shut the door," quoth the goodman, "and...1894, Joseph Jacobs, “More English Fairy Tales”, in The Wee Bannock, D. Nutt
    • I attempted to get a grip in the snow with my frozen fingers, to stem myself with my heels, but with no success, […]1898, Arnold Henry Savage Landor, In the Forbidden Land, Heinemann, Chapter XIII
  2. To attain the understanding of a complex topic.
    • […] the great antiquarian, Duald MacFirbis […], who was able to penetrate and get a grip of the long forgotten language of the ancient law tracts […]1913, Douglas Hyde, “Eugene O'Curry”, in Catholic Encyclopedia, The Encyclopedia Press
    • "Grogan, the truth is, I travel to keep away from New York. There I'm lost: too many friends. When I'm at sea I get away from it all and kind of get a grip on life again. You understand?"1917, Harold MacGrath, The Luck of the Irish, Harper & Brothers, page 206
  3. (idiomatic, imperative) To come to one's senses and become more rational after having experienced a strong emotion.
    • He needs to get a grip if he's getting that angry over such a little thing.
    • She made her innocent bow, and retired without a suspicion that she had been an embarrassment. Nothing would have happened, now, perhaps, if quiet could have been maintained for a few minutes, so that the people could get a grip upon themselves, but the strain overpowered my old maid partner and...1907, “Mark Twain's Fables of Man”, in John S. Tuckey, editor, Little Nelly Tells a Story Out of Her Own Head, University of California Press

Examples of get a grip in a sentence

  • "The Government needs to get a grip on the cost of electricity," she noted.2022 February 9, Tom Allett, “Network News: Improved planning the key for advancing rail freight”, in RAIL, number 950, page 28:
  • When I reached this stage of visual chaos I stopped for a moment to get a grip on myself.1929, H.P. Lovecraft, Zealia Bishop, The Mound, Part VII:

Forms of get a grip

third-person singular presentgets a grip
present participlegetting a grip
pastgot a grip
past participle UKgot a grip
past participle USgotten a grip

Questions about get a grip

What does get a grip mean?
Get a grip means to grip, as in: to take hold of, as with the hand.
How do you use get a grip in a sentence?
"The Government needs to get a grip on the cost of electricity," she noted.
What part of speech is get a grip?
Get a grip is a verb.
What is the past tense of get a grip?
The past tense of get a grip is got a grip.

Words near get a grip in the dictionary

  1. get a charge out of
  2. get a clue
  3. get a dog up ya
  4. get a dog up you
  5. get a fix
  6. get a grip
  7. get a handle on
  8. get a hold of
  9. get a horse
  10. get a jag on
  11. get a jump on

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: get a grip (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-get a grip.ogg, en-au-get a grip.ogg.

Cite this entry: “get a grip.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/get_a_grip. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.