grip

To grip something is to hold it so tightly it cannot slip. Gripping the rail on a rocking bus, gripping a pen far harder than the writing needs, a toddler gripping your finger with a whole fist.

Things grip without hands too: tyres grip the road, boots grip wet rock, and that is friction rather than fingers. It also means to hold attention completely — a gripping thriller, a book that grips you from the first page. The noun does a lot of work: a firm grip, the grip of a tennis racket, which is the part you hold, a grip on the subject, which is understanding, and in the grip of a fever or a recession. Get a grip is what you say to someone losing control of themselves, and to come to grips with a problem is to start dealing with it properly. Mind the spelling: gripped and gripping double the p, grips does not.

Phrases it lives in

• get a grip — take control of your feelings
• come to grips with — begin dealing with something difficult
• in the grip of — suffering under something you cannot escape