Etymology

grok

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Today it means: To understand (something) intuitively, to know (something) without having to think intellectually. Full definition →

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The story

Coined ex nihilo by American author and engineer Robert A. Heinlein in 1961 in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land. Heinlein invented the word for his fictitious Martian language. It is described as meaning "to drink" and, figuratively, "to drink in all available aspects of reality", "to become one with the observed". William Tenn asked Heinlein if it could have been inspired by the term griggo, which featured in Tenn's "Venus and the Seven Sexes" (1949); Heinlein "looked startled, then thought about it for a long time (and) shrugged, (saying) 'It's possible, very possible.'"

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.