grapple
Syllables: grap·pleUK/ˈɡɹæpəl/
grapple verb: to seize something and hold it firmly.
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Verb (1)
grapple (third-person singular simple present grapples, present participle grappling, simple past and past participle grappled)
- To seize something and hold it firmly.
- To wrestle or tussle.
- To ponder and intensely evaluate a problem; to struggle to deal with.
- to grapple with one's conscience
- Class 4 2-6-4T No. 42098 grapples with the 1 in 63 to Troutbeck at the head of the "Lakes Express".1961 October, ""Voyageur"", “The Cockermouth, Keswick & Penrith Railway”, in Trains Illustrated, page 599, photo caption
Noun (1)
grapple (countable and uncountable, plural grapples)
- A close hand-to-hand struggle.
- The act of grappling. (uncountable)
Noun (2)
grapple (plural grapples)
Verb (2)
grapple (third-person singular simple present grapples, present participle grappling, simple past and past participle grappled)
- To fasten, as with a grapple; (by extension) to fix; to join indissolubly.
- The gallies were grapled to the Centurion.1589, Richard Hakluyt, The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation, […], London: […] George Bishop and Ralph Newberie, deputies to Christopher Barker, […], →OCLC
- Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
- To climb (whether by means of a grapple and rope, or by hand, etc).
- Sam quickly geared up and placed the first hook. “I am coming as well,” Alicia announced. […] Sam planted the anchor and then grappled down as Alicia struggled to move more than a foot or shift down.2012, Allen G. Davison, The Blessed, →ISBN, page 149
- In cases such as this, the Silencer usually grappled up the outside of the building. But Rumpus' tower was sixty storeys tall […]2016, Cora Buhlert, St. Nicholas of Hell's Kitchen: An Silencer Holiday Story, Pegasus Pulp Publishing, →ISBN, page 27
- To use a grapple (for example to attempt to find, hook, and raise a net or cable).
- The following days I spent patrolling the river and grappling for nets. On Wednesday , 18th July , left Gananoque at 7 a.m.; patrolled down to Rockport, […]1912, Sessional Papers - Legislature of the Province of Ontario, page 126
- After returning from the cable factory with another load of cable and repeaters, the buoy will be recovered or the rope grappled for. When the previous section is aboard the ship, transmission tests are made […]2012, Jamal Manassah, Innovations in Telecommunications, Elsevier, page 427
- To hook and raise with a grapple.
- The place where the cable got jammed and broken at the bottom was two or three miles from where I grappled up the cable the first time. I do not, of course, know for certain whether rocks with crevices exist.1861, Report of the Joint Committee Appointed by the Lords of the Committee of [Great British] Privy Council for Trade and the Atlantic Telegraph Company, page 263
- [page 11:] Weston had just grappled the net, when we saw the light corning up the lake.
[page 15:] A. About an hour and a half after dark with Weston I rowed across to this point where the net was set, and he, with a grappling hook, grappled up the net.1908, New York (State). Court of Appeals, New York Court of Appeals. Records and Briefs
Noun (3)
grapple (uncountable)
- A combination of grape and apple flavors.
- Lady Cheron looks at the cupboards. Both apple butter and apple jelly, as well as "grapple" (grape-apple) jelly are sitting in little mason jars on the top shelf.1997 July 28, LadyCheron, “A Pawned Pond”, in alt.callahans (Usenet)
- Bradley’s mother prefers grapple juice that is 25 percent grape and 75 percent apple.2001, Charlene Beckmann, Esther Billings, “Menu of Problems: April 2001”, in Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, volume 6, number 8, NCTM, →DOI, →ISSN, pages 464–472
grapple meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
grapple in Urdu
- آنکڑا, گرفت, کانٹا, قلاب, زنبور, ہاتھا پائی کرنا
grapple in Bengali
- কুস্তি লড়া, আঁকড়ে ধরা
grapple in Malayalam
- മല്ലയുദ്ധം ചെയ്യുക, കൊളുത്തുക, മുറുകെപ്പിടിക്കുക, അള്ളിപ്പിടിക്കുക
grapple in Kannada
- ಭದ್ರವಾಗಿ ಹಿಡಿ, ಪಟ್ಟುಹಾಕು, ಮುಷ್ಟಾಮುಷ್ಟಿ ಹೊಡೆದಾಡು, ಕೈಕೈ ಮಿಲಾಯಿಸಿ ಹೋರಾಡು, ಗಟ್ಟಿಹಿಡಿ, ಹೊಡೆದಾಡು
More languagesFewer languages
- grapple in Punjabi
- ਗੁੱਥਮਗੁੱਥਾ ਹੋਣਾ gutthamgutthā hoṇā
- grapple in Persian
- چنگ زدن čang zadan, دست به یقه شدن dast be yaqe šodan, دست و پنجه نرم کردن dast-o-panje narm kardan, چنگ čang
Examples of grapple in a sentence
- Fear of death is a universal human concern with which all thinking people at some point grapple.2018, Timothy R. Jennings, The Aging Brain, →ISBN, page 173:
- We have come to rely on it in such a brief period that we have not been able to grapple fully with the scale or the meaning of home delivery.2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian:
- [Animals are hung] one by one, by a chain or rope grappled about a hind ankle, and carried, thus suspended, by an overhead device, to where the sticker stands.1914, Proceedings of the International Anti-vivisection and Animal Protection Congress, Held at Washington, D.C., December 8th to 11th...
- Then I saw it — a figure swinging just above the arches, hanging from rope grappled to a lintel of an alcove fifty feet above.1988, Roger Lichtenberg Simon, Raising the dead, →ISBN:
Forms of grapple
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | grapples |
| present participle | grappling |
| past participle | grappled |
| past | grappled |
| alternative form | graple |
| Noun | |
| plural | grapples |
Origin of grapple
From Middle English *grapplen (“to seize, lay hold of”), from Old English *græpplian (“to seize”) (compare Old English ġegræppian (“to seize”)), from Proto-Germanic *graipilōną, *grabbalōną (“to seize”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrebʰ- (“to take, seize, rake”), equivalent to grab + -le. Cognate with Dutch grabbelen (“to grope, scramble, scrabble”), German grabbeln (“to rummage, grope about”) and grapsen, grapschen (“to seize, grasp, grabble”). Influenced in some senses by grapple (“tool with claws or hooks”, noun) (see below). See further at grasp.
From Middle English *grapple, *graple, from Old French grappil (“a ship's grapple”) (compare Old French grappin (“hook”)), from Old French grape, grappe, crape (“hook”), of Germanic origin, from Frankish *krappō (“hook”), from Proto-Indo-European *grep- (“hook”), *gremb- (“crooked, uneven”), from Proto-Indo-European *ger- (“to turn, bend, twist”). See further at grape. Influenced in some senses by grapple (“seize”, verb) (see above).
Blend of grape + apple.
Words formed from grapple
Phrases with grapple
Words that rhyme with grapple
Questions about grapple
- What does grapple mean?
- Grapple means to seize something and hold it firmly.
- What is grapple in Urdu?
- Grapple in Urdu is آنکڑا, گرفت, کانٹا. See Grapple meaning in Urdu.
- How do you use grapple in a sentence?
- Fear of death is a universal human concern with which all thinking people at some point grapple.
- What part of speech is grapple?
- Grapple can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce grapple?
- Grapple is pronounced /ˈɡɹæpəl/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of grapple?
- The past tense of grapple is grappled.
Words near grapple in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: grapple (page history and authors); grapple (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Grapple (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); grapple (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); grapple (Kannada Wiktionary) (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-ca-grapple.oga, en-au-grapple.ogg.
Cite this entry: “grapple.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/grapple. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.