grab
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "grab", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "grab" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "grab" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
grab is aEnglishverb. It means: To grip suddenly; to seize; to clutch. Pronounced /ɡɹæb/. It ranks #2,896 in English word frequency. Often confused with GTA and GRE.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | grab |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ɡɹæb/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #2,896 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for grab is 4 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɡɹæb/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,896 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for grab, with forms such as "ggrab", "grabb", and "grba". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "GTA", "GRE", "GSA", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle Dutch grabben or Middle Low German grabben (“to grasp, grab, seize, snatch”), from Old Saxon gravan, from Proto-West Germanic *grabbōn, a secondary form of Proto-Germanic *grabōną (“to gather, rake”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrebʰ- (“to gathe… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is grab, spelled G-R-A-B, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To grip suddenly; to seize; to clutch.
- 2To make a sudden grasping or clutching motion (at something).
- 3To restrain someone; to arrest.
- 4To grip the attention of; to enthrall or interest.
- 5To quickly collect, retrieve, or take.
- 6To consume something quickly.
- 7To take the opportunity of.
Etymology
From Middle Dutch grabben or Middle Low German grabben (“to grasp, grab, seize, snatch”), from Old Saxon gravan, from Proto-West Germanic *grabbōn, a secondary form of Proto-Germanic *grabōną (“to gather, rake”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrebʰ- (“to gather, rake, grab, seize”). Related to archaic German grappen (“to grab”), Danish grabbe (“to grab”), Swedish grabba (“to grab”), Old Norse grápa (“to seize, appropriate”), Middle English grappen (“to feel, grope, grasp, clutch”), Old English ġegræppian (“to seize”). Related also to Sanskrit गृह्णाति (gṛhṇā́ti), गृभ्णाति (gṛbhṇā́ti, “he seizes”), Avestan 𐬔𐬭𐬀𐬠 (grab, “to seize”)), Macedonian грабне (grabne, “to snatch”), Bulgarian грабя (grabja, “to rob, to grab”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ggrab,grabb,grba,grrab,rgab
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for grab
Misspelling Variants of "grab"
Frequency rank: #2,896 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter G in our English index: