Grab

How to spell grab

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce grab

What does grab mean?

1. verbTo seize or take hold of something suddenly and firmly.
2. nounA sudden attempt to seize or take something.

Grab in a sentence

• verb

  She would grab her keys on the way out the door each morning.

• noun

  He made a quick grab for the falling cup but missed it.

• verb

  Try to grab a seat near the front before the meeting fills up.

• noun

  The crane lowered its grab to scoop up the gravel.

Where does grab come from?

Language of origin: Dutch

Grab entered English in the late 1500s from the Low German and Dutch verb grabben, meaning 'to seize' or 'to snatch'. That word belonged to a wider Germanic family of words for grasping with the hand, sharing an ancestor with 'grip', 'grope', and 'grasp', all of which point back to a root sense of closing the fingers tightly around something. It seems to have arrived in English partly through sailors and traders, since much nautical and commercial vocabulary of the period came from contact with Dutch and German speakers across the North Sea. The earliest uses kept the literal physical meaning of snatching at an object, and only later did figurative uses develop, such as grabbing attention or grabbing an opportunity. The spelling is mercifully phonetic, with the single short 'a' and the final 'b' giving few writers any trouble.

How the word is built

• grab (from Middle Low German/Middle Dutch grabben: to seize), single root, no affixes