Meanings
plural grippes · alternative grip
- countabledateduncountablemedicineInfluenza, the flu.First known use 18th c.
These other germs are the cause of colds and coughs and grippes.
1885, Public Health, Michigan, volume 2, page 392 more examples
"Mid-Lent, and the Enemy grins," remarked Selwyn as he started for church with Nina and the children. Austin, knee-deep in a dozen Sunday supplements, refused to stir; poor little Eileen was now convalescent from grippe, but still unsteady on her legs; her maid had taken the grippe, and now moaned all day: "Mon dieu! Mon dieu! Che fais mourir!"
1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IV, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC[T]hat day was the only holiday I had all the time I was in camp - except when I had the ‘grippe’ and nearly pegged out.
1933, Frank Clune, Try Anything Once, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 80
Synonyms & antonyms
nounan acute febrile highly contagious viral disease
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Proto-Indo-European*gʰreyb-“to grab, to grasp”
- Proto-Germanic*grīpaną
- Frankish*grīpan
- Frenchgrippe
- Englishgrippe
Borrowed from French grippe, from gripper (“to seize, snatch”), from Frankish *grīpan, from Proto-Germanic *grīpaną, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰreyb- (“to grab, to grasp”). Borrowed from French into many languages of the world. More at gripe.
More words from French, Frankish, Proto-Germanic
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with grippe
All rhymes →Sounds the same
Anagrams
Cite this entry
grippe. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/grippe
“grippe.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/grippe. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “grippe,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/grippe.
Source: grippe on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.