Other forms: grasping, grasped, grasps
To grasp is to seize something firmly with the hand. Grasp the rail, grasp it tightly, she grasped his arm.
It is stronger and more deliberate than hold and implies closing the fingers around something. The mental sense is at least as common: to grasp an idea is to finally understand it — I could not grasp what he meant. The noun means both the physical grip and the understanding: a firm grasp, a good grasp of the subject. Note grasp the nettle, meaning to tackle an unpleasant task directly, and within your grasp, meaning nearly achieved.
1verbgraspTo seize something firmly with the hand.
“She grasped the rail with both hands.”
2verbfullyTo understand something fully.
“It took him a week to grasp what the figures meant.”
3nounholdA firm hold, or a firm understanding.
“She has a good grasp of the whole system.”
grasp is a firm hold.
Also accepted in games: grip, understand
Middle English graspen is related to grope, from a Germanic root meaning to feel about with the hands. Grasping something and groping for it are the same action separated by whether you found it.
Proto-Germanic
*graipisōną
Proto-West Germanic
*graipisōn
Old English
*grǣpsian
Middle English
graspen
English, today
grasp
Built from
From Middle English graspen, grapsen, craspen (“to grope; feel around”), from Old English grǣpsian, from Proto-West Germanic graipisōn, from Proto-Germanic graipisōną, from gʰrebʰ-, the same ultimate source as grab. Cognate with stq grapsje (“to grab, grasp”), German Low German grapsen (“to grab; grasp”), German grapsen and grapschen, Old English grāpian "to touch, feel, grasp"; > Modern English grope. Compare also Swedish krafsa (“to scatch; scabble”), Norwegian krafse* (“to scramble”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA