gripe
/ɡɹaɪp/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.81 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To tend to come up into the wind, as a ship which, when sailing close-hauled, requires constant labour at the helm.
verb
To pinch; to distress. Specifically, to cause pinching and spasmodic pain to the bowels of, as by the effects of certain purgative or indigestible substances.
Obsolete; Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "In “Treehouse Of Horror” episodes, the rules aren’t just different—they don’t even exist. If writers want Homer to kill Flanders or for a segment to end with a marriage between a woman and a giant ape, they can do so without worrying about continuity or consistency or fans griping that the gang is behaving out of character."
- "After making The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in 2003 (and griping to the press that he was “fed up with the idiots”), Sean Connery enjoyed 17 years of retirement before he died in 2020."
- "What's griping you?"
- "How inly sorrow gripes his soul."
- "the griping of an hungry belly"
- "Therefore, everyman, look to that last end that is thy death and the dust that gripeth on every man that is born of woman for as he came naked forth from his mother's womb so naked shall he wend him at the last for to go as he came."
Etymology
From Middle English gripen, from Old English grīpan, from Proto-Germanic *grīpaną, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰreyb- (“to grab, grasp”). Cognate with West Frisian gripe, Low German griepen, Dutch grijpen, German greifen, Danish gribe, Norwegian Bokmål gripe, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish gripa, Icelandic grípa. See also grip, grope.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *gʰreyb-, gripen, grīpan, *grīpaną