Meaning

noun a mechanical device for gripping an object

noun the act of catching an object with the hands

verb take hold of so as to seize or restrain or stop the motion of

originFrom 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…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0