Word.ws English Dictionary

grasping

Syllables: grasp·ing/ˈɡɹɑːspɪŋ/US/ˈɡɹæspɪŋ/

grasping adjective: greedy, eager for wealth. Also the present participle and gerund of grasp.

Adjective

grasping (comparative more grasping, superlative most grasping)

  1. Greedy, eager for wealth.
    • Just how, Agamemnon, great field marshal . . . most grasping man alive, how can the generous Argives give you prizes now? I know of no troves of treasure, piled, lying idle, anywhere.1990, Robert Fagles, transl., The Iliad

Noun

grasping (plural graspings)

  1. The act of one who grasps or covets.
    • These are my connections, my attachments. Maybe all I really am is the sum of all these connections, these fearful longings and graspings.2009, Jed McKenna, Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment

Also used as

grasping is also the present participle and gerund of grasp.

grasping meaning in Nepali

grasping in Nepali

ग्रसिँदै

Examples of grasping in a sentence

  • I've never met his mother, so I'm grasping at straws for an appropriate gift for her.
  • He climbed the stairs unsteadily, grasping the banister and gasping for breath.
  • For the unions, the private sector is a grasping, evil leech.

All 32 example sentences with grasping

Forms of grasping

Adjective
comparativemore grasping
superlativemost grasping
Noun
pluralgraspings

Words formed from grasping

Phrases with grasping

Questions about grasping

What does grasping mean?
Grasping means greedy, eager for wealth.
What is grasping in Nepali?
Grasping in Nepali is ग्रसिँदै. See Grasping meaning in Nepali.
What part of speech is grasping?
Grasping can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce grasping?
Grasping is pronounced /ˈɡɹæspɪŋ/ (US).

Words near grasping in the dictionary

  1. graspers
  2. graspest
  3. graspeth
  4. graspful
  5. graspfuls
  6. grasping
  7. grasping for straws
  8. grasping the nettle
  9. graspingly
  10. graspingness
  11. graspings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: grasping (page history and authors); grasping (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-grasping.wav.

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