Grappling

How to spell grappling

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce grappling

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does grappling mean?

1. verbGripping and struggling at close quarters, or figuratively wrestling hard with a difficult problem.
2. adjectiveDescribing a hooked device thrown on a rope to catch and hold onto something.

Grappling in a sentence

• verb

  The finance team is still grappling with the new tax rules.

• adjective

  The climber tossed the grappling hook over the wall and hauled himself up.

• verb

  The two wrestlers were grappling in the centre of the mat.

• adjective

  Sailors once used a grappling iron to seize an enemy ship.

Where does grappling come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the present participle of the verb 'grapple', which English took from Old French in the 1500s. The French word 'grappil' or 'grappelle' was a small hook or grapnel, a diminutive of 'grape', meaning a hook or a clustered bunch, and that 'grape' came in turn from a Germanic root (a Frankish 'krappa') meaning 'hook'. The earliest English uses were nautical and military: a 'grappling iron' was the hooked device thrown to catch and hold an enemy ship. From the idea of hooking and gripping fast, the verb broadened to mean wrestling at close quarters and then, figuratively, struggling hard to master a difficult problem. The same Germanic 'hook' ancestor sits behind the word 'grapnel', and the double 'p' that trips writers simply preserves the short vowel from that original cluster.

How the word is built

• grapple (to grip/struggle, from a word for hook)
• -ing (present participle suffix)