grapple

«grapple» in Mova's school dictionary: To fight with someone by holding and struggling with them — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

part of speech

verb (grapple, grapples, grappled, grappling); noun (a grapple — rare)

meaning for a pupil

1) To fight with someone by holding and struggling with them. tree →

2) (grapple with) To work hard to understand or deal with a difficult problem. tree →

3) (noun) A hook used to grab or hold something, also called a grappling hook. tree →

sense in the lessons

Sense 2 is common in school and news: «grapple with fractions», «the town is grappling with floods». Sense 1 is used for wrestling and fights in stories, like Toad grappling with the barge-woman.

examples

• The two wrestlers grappled on the mat. tree →
• Pupils grappled with the tricky word problem. tree →
• The police officer grappled with the thief. tree →
• Scientists are grappling with the problem of climate change. tree →
• Toad grappled with the barge-woman, but she was too strong for him. tree →
• The pirates threw grappling hooks onto the ship. tree →
• He clutched my collar and we grappled in a death struggle. tree →

note

Regular verb: grappled, grappling. «Grapple with» is the main pattern. A «grappling hook» has several hooks on a rope, used to climb or catch hold of ships.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «grapple» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.