Gripping

How to spell gripping

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce gripping

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does gripping mean?

1. adjectiveHolding the attention or interest completely; absorbing and exciting.
2. verbPresent participle of grip: holding something tightly with the hand.

Gripping in a sentence

• adjective

  The documentary was so gripping that nobody left the room.

• verb

  She stood at the edge, gripping the cold metal railing with both hands.

• adjective

  Reviewers praised the novel for its gripping courtroom scenes.

• verb

  The climber kept gripping the rope as the wind picked up.

Where does gripping come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the Old English verb grippan, meaning 'to seize, grasp, or take firm hold of', which sat alongside the related gripan and shares its ancestry with the everyday noun 'grip'. The root traces back to a Germanic source that gave Dutch grijpen and German greifen, all carrying the same idea of clutching something tightly with the hand. The literal sense of physically clutching gradually extended into a figurative one, so that by the modern era something that 'grips' you holds your attention as firmly as a hand holds an object. The spelling follows a regular English rule: a short stressed vowel before a single consonant doubles that consonant when -ing is added, which is exactly why grip becomes gripping rather than 'griping' (a quite different word about complaining). Keeping that doubled p in mind is the surest way to avoid the slip.

How the word is built

• grip (from Old English grippan: to seize, grasp)
• -ing (forming the participle/adjective; the final consonant doubles after a short stressed vowel)