Your ShelfYour Projects
Webster's Dictionary (1865)

3 entries under this word

Gripe

Gripe, v. t.

verbtransitive

v. t. [imp. & p. p. GRIPED (grĭpt); p. pr. & vb. n. GRIPING.] [A-S. & O. Sax. gripan, Goth. greipan, Icel. gripa, greipa, Sw. gripa, Dan. gribe, D. gripen, O. H. Ger. grifan, M. H. Ger. grifen, kripfen, N. H. Ger. greifen, allied to Slav. grabiti, Lith. graibyti; whence Fr. gripper. Cf. GRAB.]

  1. To catch with the hand; to clasp closely with the fingers; to clutch.
  2. To seize and hold fast; to embrace closely.

He had griped the monarchy in a stricter and faster hold. Bp. Taylor.

  1. To give pain to the bowels of, as if by pressure or contraction.
  2. To pinch; to straiten; to distress.

How inly sorrow gripes his soul. Shak.

Gripe, v. t.

verbtransitive
  1. To hold or pinch as with a gripe; to get money by hard bargains or mean exactions; as, a griping miser.
  2. To suffer griping pains. Locke.
  3. (Naut.) To tend to come up into the wind, as a ship. R. H. Dana, Jr.

Grīpe, n.

noun

n. 1. Grasp; seizure; fast hold; clutch. “A barren scepter in my gripe.” Shak.

  1. That on which the grasp is put; a handle; as, the gripe of a sword.
  2. Oppression; cruel exaction; affliction; pinching distress; as, the gripe of poverty.
  3. Pinching and spasmodic pain in the intestines; — chiefly used in the plural.
  4. (Naut.) (a.) The piece of timber which terminates the keel at the fore end; the fore-foot. (b.) The compass or sharpness of a ship’s stern under the water, having a tendency to make her keep a good wind. (c.) (pl.) An assemblage of ropes, dead-eyes, and hooks, fastened to ring-bolts in the deck, to secure the boats. Totten.
  5. [See GRYPE.] A vulture; sometimes, also, a griffin. See GRYPE. [Obs.]

Upon whose breast a fiercer gripe doth tire, Than did on him who first stole down the fire. Sir P. Sidney.