grabbled

Verb

grabble (third-person singular simple present grabbles, present participle grabbling, simple past and past participle grabbled)

1. (intransitive) To search with one's hands and fingers; to attempt to grasp something.
   • Ile grable for Gudgeons or fish for Flounders in the Rereward of our eminent temporizing Humorists, sharpe Satyrists, or Ænigmaticall Epigramatists.1614, John Taylor, Water-Worke: or, The Sculler’s Travels, Dedication, in All the Works of John Taylor the Water Poet, London: James Boler, 1630, reprinted for the Spenser Society, 1869

   Synonyms:

   fumble, grope, grubble, root, rummage, feel around, scrabble, fish, forage, scramble

2. (intransitive, obsolete) To search in a similar way using an implement.
   • […] he proposes to spend the Afternoon at the Out-side of the Rock, in viewing the Sea, and looking for Oysters; so takes in his Hand his long Staff to grabble in Holes […]1727, Peter Longueville, The Hermit, Westminster: T. Warner and B. Creake, Book 3, p. 181
3. (transitive) To touch (someone) with one's hands or fingers, sometimes in a sexual way.
   • When Nelly tho’ he teiz’d her,
     And Grabbled her and Squeez’d her,
     Cry’d, stay a little, I vow and swear I could kill ye,
     Another touch I can bear ye,1719, Thomas d'Urfey, “Willey’s Intreague” in Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, London: J. Tonson, 1876 reprint, p. 195

   Synonyms:

   feel up, fondle, grope, canoodle, caress, chuckle, coax, cosset, dally, dandle

4. (transitive) To pick (something or someone) up hastily, roughly or clumsily.
   • [H]e did so stare at the money, that I vows I thought he'd have rin away with it from the counter—so I grabbled it up, and went away.1837, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter X, in Ernest Maltravers […] , volume I, London: Saunders and Otley, […], →OCLC, book I, page 99

   Synonyms:

   grab, seize, snatch

5. (transitive) To attempt to grab; to grasp at (something).
   • The flailing mob of forty-fold took turns at throwing, each trying to lasso the sinking beast as it grabbled the air in blind terror in an attempt to keep its forelegs above the surface.1989, Nick Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel, New York: HarperPaperbacks, published 1992, Book 2, Chapter 12, p. 228

   Synonyms:

   clutch, grip, beclasp, begrasp, begrip, belock, clasp, clench, clinch, cling

6. (transitive) To pull, lift or dig (something) (out of the ground) by searching with one's hands and fingers.
   • […] Harry went into the potato patch and grabbled us some sweet potatoes […]1865, W. W. McCarty, “History of Captain W. W. McCarty’s Prison Life, and Southern Prisons,” in History of the 78th Regiment O.V.V.I., Zanesville, OH: Hugh Dunne, p. 302

   Synonyms:

   grub

See all 12 meanings of grabble