grapple

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English grapel, also grabel and crappelle,^[2] borrowed from Old French grapil (“hook”),^{[3][4][5][6][7]} a diminutive of grape (“hook”).^[8][3] Hoad, the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English take the Old French word from Old Occitan grapa (“hook”), of Germanic origin and related to grape.^[7][5][6] The OED derives the noun probably from an unrecorded Old French diminutive *grapelle of grape, and compares grappil, "the graple of a ship", recorded only by Cotgrave;^[9] Klein gives the same unrecorded form,^[10] and Merriam-Webster takes it from Middle French grappelle, a diminutive of grappe (“grape hook”).^[11] The verb was formed from the noun in the 16th century,^[9][4][5][7] and the OED notes that some of its uses seem to have been influenced by grope, grip and grasp.^[9] Dictionary.com instead calls the verb apparently a frequentative of Old English grǣppian (“to seize”), associated with grapnel.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

A grappling iron: the Middle English Dictionary records grapell in an Exchequer account of 1295,^[2] and Barnhart dates the noun to 1295.^[13][4] Etymonline dates it to the late 13th century,^[3] while the OED's first record of the noun, as of the verb "to seize a ship with a grapnel", is in Palsgrave's French–English dictionary of 1530.^[9][4]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline notes that the verb at first meant to seize and hold a ship by means of a grapple.^[3][4] Within decades it was used of seizing a person with the hands and coming to close quarters, and intransitively of gripping an opponent in close fight, especially in wrestling (1582, in Stanyhurst's Virgil);^[9][5] Barnhart dates the sense "battle, struggle with" to Shakespeare's 2 Henry VI (1593).^[4] Etymonline dates the extension to struggling with immaterial things, the modern grapple with a problem, to the 1630s.^[3] Shakespeare also used the verb figuratively in Hamlet (1603), for fastening something closely and firmly as if with a grapple.^[9] The noun followed the verb: the act of grappling, or a close hold, is recorded by Barnhart from 1601, in Twelfth Night,^[4] and by the OED from 1604, in Hamlet,^[9] and Johnson (1755) defined it as a contest hand to hand in which the fighters seize each other.^[14] The noun also named a small anchor with several flukes from the early 17th century.^[9][5] In northern English dialects the verb meant to catch fish with the hands in streams, and in Lincolnshire to struggle or exert oneself;^[15] in British slang of the late 19th century grapples were the hands.^[16]

Timeline

• 1295 – grapell, a grappling iron.^[2][4]
• 1530 – the verb, to seize a ship with a grapnel.^[9][4] The OED also first records the noun in this sense here.^[9]
• 1571 – a contrivance for clutching and grasping.^[9]
• 1582 – to seize with the hands; to contend in close fight.^[9]
• 1593 – to struggle with an opponent.^[4]
• 1601 – noun, the act of grappling.^[4] The OED's first record is in Hamlet (1604).^[9]
• 1620s – grappling hook.^[3]
• 1630s – to struggle with something immaterial.^[3]
• 1877 – grapples, the hands, in slang.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. To struggle with someone at close quarters, gripping each other, as in wrestling: Two of the players grappled near the touchline.^[17][11][9]
2. grapple with: to try hard to deal with a difficult problem: The council is still grappling with the housing shortage.^[17][11]
3. To seize, hold or fasten with a grapple: They grappled the drifting barge and towed it in.^[17][11][9]
4. To seize or grip with the hands.^[11][9]

Noun

1. A hooked instrument for seizing and holding, such as a grapnel.^[17][11][9]
2. The act of grappling; a firm grip or hold, as in wrestling.^[17][11][9]
3. A contest at close quarters, especially a wrestling match.^[17][11]

Word family

• grappler
• grapple plant

Related words

• grapnel
• grape
• cramp

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
16. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
17. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins