Etymology

begripe

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Today it means: To lay hold of; apprehend; grip; grasp. Full definition →

Middle English begripen ← Old English begrīpan ← Proto-West Germanic *bigrīpan
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The story

  1. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*bigrīpan
  2. Old English · inherited frombegrīpan“to grip, seize, lay hold of; chide”
  3. Middle English · inherited frombegripen
  4. English todaybegripe

From Middle English begripen, bigripen, from Old English begrīpan (“to grip, seize, lay hold of; chide”), from Proto-West Germanic *bigrīpan. Equivalent to be- (“around, about”) + gripe.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.