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# 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 →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/grapple/#m1)

2) (grapple with) To work hard to understand or deal with a difficult problem. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/grapple/#m2)

3) (noun) A hook used to grab or hold something, also called a grappling hook. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/grapple/#m3)

### 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 →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/grapple/#x1)
- Pupils grappled with the tricky word problem. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/grapple/#x2)
- The police officer grappled with the thief. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/grapple/#x3)
- Scientists are grappling with the problem of climate change. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/grapple/#x4)
- Toad grappled with the barge-woman, but she was too strong for him. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/grapple/#x5)
- The pirates threw grappling hooks onto the ship. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/grapple/#x6)
- He clutched my collar and we grappled in a death struggle. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/grapple/#x7)

### 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](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/grapple/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.