gripping

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡɹɪpɪŋ/
• Rhymes: -ɪpɪŋ

Adjective

gripping (comparative more gripping, superlative most gripping)

1. Which catches someone's attention; exciting

   a gripping action film

   Synonyms: interesting, absorbing, fascinating

Verb

gripping

1. present participle and gerund of grip

Noun

gripping (plural grippings)

1. The act of forming a grip.
   • 1949, Stendhal [pseudonym; Marie-Henri Beyle], edited by William Somerset Maugham, Stendhal's The Red and the Black, volume 10, page 126:

     His resentful comments on this conviction were greeted only by great tears falling in silence, and almost convulsive grippings of his hand.

2. Obsolete form of griping (“pinching and spasmodic pain in the intestines”).
   • 1727, Alexander Hamilton, A new account of the East Indies:

     The same Night it began to operate by Grippings and Sweating, and he being bred a Surgeon, took some Medicines to correct the Grippings, which in some Measure the Medicine did, but he lost his Appetite […]