Other forms: clasps, clasped, clasping
To clasp something is to hold it tight, with your hand or with both arms. Hands round a hot mug, a child holding a toy on the bus, two people gripping each other at an arrivals gate.
A clasp is also the small metal fastener that joins two ends together — the clasp on a necklace, on a handbag, on a watch strap. From that comes the second verb sense: you clasp a bracelet shut. To clasp your hands is to lock your own fingers together, which people do while praying and while waiting for bad news. It sits a shade more formal and more emotional than hold, because you clasp what you do not want to let go of.
1verbclaspTo hold something firmly in your hand or in your arms.~2%
“She clasped the letter to her chest without opening it.”
2verbfastenTo fasten something with a clasp.~2%
“He clasped the necklace at the back of her neck.”
3nounsmallA small metal fastening that holds two parts together.~96%
“The clasp on my bag broke and everything fell out on the platform.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 9 sentences found in the wild and placed 9 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Clasp shows up as a noun around 1300 and as a verb about a century later, from Middle English claspe, 'a metal catch or hook used to hold things together'. It stands close to Old English clyppan, 'to clasp', which is also the ancestor of clip. Hasp, an older word with almost the same meaning, is its near neighbour.
Old English
clyppan — clasp
Middle English
claspe — metal catch or hook used to hold things together
English, today
clasp
Noun dated ca. 1300 and verb dated ca. 1400; from Middle English claspe (“metal catch or hook used to hold things together”), possible clapse, which comes from or related to Old English clyppan (“clasp”) (also see clip). Related to English enclasp (“embrace, hold tightly in one's arms”). Compare hasp, of very similar meaning but older known provenance.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA