Adjacent Words

Grasping definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

GR`ASPING, ppr. Seizing; embracing; catching; holding.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: immoderately desirous of acquiring e.g. wealth; "they are avaricious and will do anything for money"; "casting covetous eyes on his neighbor's fields"; "a grasping old miser"; "grasping commercialism"; "greedy for money and power"; "grew richer and greedier"; "prehensile employers stingy with raises for their employees" [syn: avaricious, covetous, grabby, grasping, greedy, prehensile] n
1: understanding with difficulty; "the lecture was beyond his most strenuous graspings"
2: the act of gripping something firmly with the hands (or the tentacles) [syn: grasping, taking hold, seizing, prehension]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Date: 1710 desiring material possessions urgently and excessively and often to the point of ruthlessness Synonyms: see covetous • graspingly adverb • graspingness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. avaricious, greedy. Derivatives: graspingly adv. graspingness n.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Grasping Grasp"ing, a. 1. Seizing; embracing; catching. 2. Avaricious; greedy of gain; covetous; close; miserly; as, he is a grasping man. -- Grasp"ing*ly, adv. -- Grasp"ing*ness, n.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

If you describe someone as grasping, you are criticizing them for wanting to get and keep as much money as possible, and for being unwilling to spend it. ...a greedy grasping drug-ridden individual... ADJ [disapproval]

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. Avaricious, covetous, rapacious, exacting, sordid, with an itching palm.

Moby Thesaurus

a hog for, acquiring, acquisitive, acquisitiveness, all-devouring, all-engulfing, ambitious for self, autistic, avarice, avaricious, avariciousness, avid, avidity, avidness, bloodsucking, bottomless, careerist, clamant, clamorous, clinging, coveting, covetous, covetousness, crying, cupidity, demanding, desirous, devouring, draining, egotistical, esurient, exacting, exigent, exorbitant, extortionate, frenzy of desire, fury of desire, gluttonous, gluttony, gobbling, grabby, graspingness, greed, greediness, greedy, gripping, hoggish, hoggishness, holding, importunate, incontinence, individualistic, inordinate desire, insatiability, insatiable, insatiable desire, insatiate, insistent, instant, intemperateness, itching palm, itchy, keeping, limitless, loud, lupine, lust, mean, mercenary, miserly, money-hungry, money-mad, narcissistic, niggardly, omnivorous, overgreediness, overgreedy, parasitic, parsimonious, penny-pinching, penurious, persistent, personalistic, pertinacious, piggish, piggishness, possessive, predacious, predatory, prehensile, pressing, privatistic, quenchless, rapacious, rapaciousness, rapacity, raptorial, ravening, ravenous, ravenousness, remote, retentive, self-absorbed, self-admiring, self-advancing, self-besot, self-centered, self-considerative, self-contained, self-devoted, self-esteeming, self-indulgent, self-interested, self-jealous, self-occupied, self-pleasing, self-seeking, self-serving, self-sufficient, selfish, sharkish, slakeless, sordid, sordidness, stingy, swinish, swinishness, taxing, tenacious, tight, tight-fisted, unappeasable, unappeased, unquenchable, unsated, unsatisfied, unslakeable, unslaked, urgent, venal, voracious, voraciousness, voracity, vulturine, vulturous, wolfish, wolfishness