grasping

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of grasp.

   He stood at the bow grasping the railing while the boat rocked.

   Grasping the underlying concept took her several days of careful study.

   Note

   A single -ing form does two jobs for grasp. As a participle it builds the progressive ("is grasping the railing"), and as a gerund it names the action ("grasping it took days"). It carries every sense of the verb, from gripping with the hand to understanding to seizing a chance. To tell it from the "greedy" adjective, look for an object: the verb form takes one, while the adjective sits alone before a noun, as in a grasping merchant.

2. 2
   adjective

   Marked by greed and an eager desire to accumulate wealth.

   Like a hand that closes tight around every coin and never opens.

   The grasping merchant overcharged every customer who entered his shop.

   Critics called the developer grasping, accusing him of squeezing tenants for every dollar.

   Similargreedy, avaricious, acquisitive, rapacious, covetous

   Oppositegenerous, unselfish

   Note

   Greed is pictured here as a hand that will not let go, the seizing of the participle of grasp turned toward money and goods. The adjective is gradable and compares with more and most, never -er and -est. Robert Fagles's 1990 translation of The Iliad uses it at full strength when Agamemnon is called the "most grasping man alive." Use it to accuse someone, not to describe them neutrally.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The action of seizing something, or of coveting wealth and possessions.

   The novel portrays the family's grasping as the root of their eventual ruin.

   Years of grasping for gold had hardened him into a bitter recluse.

   Similargreed, avarice, acquisitiveness, covetousness

   Oppositegenerosity

   Note

   The noun takes a plural when the reaching is counted act by act. Jed McKenna's Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment (2009) speaks of "these fearful longings and graspings," meaning the many small cravings that tie a person to things. Paired with longings, the word moves from the hand toward the mind, so the plural is a natural choice for inner, reflective writing about attachment and desire.

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