Word.ws English Dictionary

getting to grips with

getting to grips with is the present participle and gerund of get to grips with.

Meaning of get to grips with

Verb

get to grips with (third-person singular simple present gets to grips with, present participle getting to grips with, simple past got to grips with, past participle (UK) got to grips with or (US) gotten to grips with)

  1. (UK, idiomatic) To deal (with something) decisively, or to confront (it) head on.
    Synonyms:
    come to grips
  2. (UK, idiomatic) To battle (with something).
    • Estonia were struggling to get to grips with the game while Ireland were showing a composure and guile that demonstrated their experience in play-off ties.2011 November 11, Rory Houston, “Estonia 0-4 Republic of Ireland”, in RTE Sport
  3. (UK, idiomatic) To gain an understanding (of something).
    • […] autism is the integral explanation of the phenomenon Kafka in all its expressions, and autism can explain the mystery of Kafka like no other of the interpretations proposed by literary scholars and critics in the history of Kafka research. […] The search by Kafka in his writing was for the...2017 May 16, Jerry Stuger, “Kafka and Autism. The Undisclosed Logic Behind Kafka’s Work”, in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, volume 47, →DOI, pages 2336–2347

Questions about getting to grips with

What is getting to grips with the present participle and gerund of?
Getting to grips with is the present participle and gerund of get to grips with.

Words near getting to grips with in the dictionary

  1. getting through
  2. getting through one's head
  3. getting through one's thick skull
  4. getting to
  5. getting to first base
  6. getting to grips with
  7. getting to know
  8. getting to one's feet
  9. getting to the bottom of
  10. getting to the fireworks factory
  11. getting to the point

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: getting to grips with (page history and authors); get to grips with (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:

Cite this entry: “getting to grips with.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/getting_to_grips_with. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.