gripple

comparative more gripple · superlative most gripple · alternative grippal · alternative griple · alternative grippill

1. Northern EnglandScotlandUKdialectalGriping; tenacious; gripping.
2. Northern EnglandScotlandUKdialectalGrasping; greedy; snatchy; mean; niggardly; avaricious, covetous.

   Still as he rode, he gnasht his teeth to see Those heapes of gold with griple Covetyse

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

   1 more example

   It is easy to observe, that none are so gripple and hard fisted, as the childless […]

   1646, Jos[eph] Hall, The Balme of Gilead: Or, Comforts for the Distressed, both Morall and Divine. […], London: […] M[iles] Flesher, for Nat[haniel] Butter, →OCLC

3. ScotlandUKdialectalSprained.

plural gripples

1. A ditch; a drain.

plural gripples

1. obsoleterareA hook.
2. obsoleterareA grasp; a grip.

   Ne ever Artegall his griple strong / For any thing wold slacke, but still upon him hong.

   1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

present singular third person gripples · participle present grippling · participle past grippled · past grippled

1. ScotlandobsoleteraretransitiveTo grasp or grab.

   'If owt comes to Mulvaaney 'long o' you, I'll gripple you, clouts or no clouts on your ugly head, an' I'll draw t' throat twistyways, man. See there now.'

   1889, Rudyard Kipling, Life's Handicap, The Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney