grapple

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   To seize something and hold it firmly.

2. 2

   To wrestle or tussle.

3. 3

   To ponder and intensely evaluate a problem

   To ponder and intensely evaluate a problem; to struggle to deal with.

   • to grapple with one's conscience
   • Class 4 2-6-4T No. 42098 grapples with the 1 in 63 to Troutbeck at the head of the "Lakes Express".
   • Fear of death is a universal human concern with which all thinking people at some point grapple.
4. ›+ 8 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      A close hand-to-hand struggle.

   2. 5

      The act of grappling. (uncountable)

   3. 6

      A tool with claws or hooks which is used to catch or hold something.

   4. 7

      To fasten, as with a grapple

      To fasten, as with a grapple; (by extension) to fix; to join indissolubly.

      • The gallies were grapled to the Centurion.
      • Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.
      • […] he provided himself with thieves' tackle and repaired to the house of the vizier in question, where he grappled a rope ladder with grappling irons to the battlements and climbed up to the roof of the palace .
   5. 8

      To climb (whether by means of a grapple and rope, or by hand, etc).

      • Sam quickly geared up and placed the first hook. “I am coming as well,” Alicia announced. […] Sam planted the anchor and then grappled down as Alicia struggled to move more than a foot or shift down.
      • In cases such as this, the Silencer usually grappled up the outside of the building. But Rumpus' tower was sixty storeys tall […]
      • I made haste and grappled up the next branch, determined to get to the top first.
   6. 9

      To use a grapple (for example to attempt to find, hook, and raise a net or cable).

      • The following days I spent patrolling the river and grappling for nets. On Wednesday , 18th July , left Gananoque at 7 a.m.; patrolled down to Rockport, […]
      • After returning from the cable factory with another load of cable and repeaters, the buoy will be recovered or the rope grappled for. When the previous section is aboard the ship, transmission tests are made […]
   7. 10

      To hook and raise with a grapple.

      • The place where the cable got jammed and broken at the bottom was two or three miles from where I grappled up the cable the first time. I do not, of course, know for certain whether rocks with crevices exist.
   8. 11

      A combination of grape and apple flavors.

      • Lady Cheron looks at the cupboards. Both apple butter and apple jelly, as well as "grapple" (grape-apple) jelly are sitting in little mason jars on the top shelf.
      • Bradley’s mother prefers grapple juice that is 25 percent grape and 75 percent apple.
      • This is a bit like pouring grape juice from one pitcher and apple juice from another pitcher into a common pitcher. You'd end up with neither grape juice or apple juice, but with some new mixture possibly called grapple juice.

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