Definition of "grabble" in Englisch

verb

1. (intransitive) To search with one's hands and fingers; to attempt to grasp something.

   • 1614, John Taylor, Water-Worke: or, The Sculler’s Travels, Dedication, in All the Works of John Taylor the Water Poet, London: James Boler, 1630, reprinted for the Spenser Society, 1869, Ile grable for Gudgeons or fish for Flounders in the Rereward of our eminent temporizing Humorists, sharpe Satyrists, or Ænigmaticall Epigramatists.
   • 1887, Oscar Wilde, “The Canterville Ghost,” Chapter III, in Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime & Other Stories, London: James R. Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., 1891, p. 113, A few hollow groans from the wardrobe, he thought, would be more than sufficient, or, if that failed to wake her, he might grabble at the counterpane with palsy-twitching fingers.

2. (intransitive, obsolete) To search in a similar way using an implement.

3. (transitive) To touch (someone) with one's hands or fingers, sometimes in a sexual way.

   • 1719, Thomas d'Urfey, “Willey’s Intreague” in Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, London: J. Tonson, 1876 reprint, p. 195, When Nelly tho’ he teiz’d her, And Grabbled her and Squeez’d her, Cry’d, stay a little, I vow and swear I could kill ye, Another touch I can bear ye,

4. (transitive) To pick (something or someone) up hastily, roughly or clumsily.

5. (transitive) To attempt to grab; to grasp at (something).

6. (transitive) To pull, lift or dig (something) (out of the ground) by searching with one's hands and fingers.

   • 1865, W. W. McCarty, “History of Captain W. W. McCarty’s Prison Life, and Southern Prisons,” in History of the 78th Regiment O.V.V.I., Zanesville, OH: Hugh Dunne, p. 302, […] Harry went into the potato patch and grabbled us some sweet potatoes […]
   • 1910, J. C. Cooper (ed.), Walnut Growing in Oregon, Passenger Department, Portland, OR: Oregon Railroad and Navigation Co., Southern Pacific Company Lines in Oregon, p. 17, One grower had a bed of hybrid black walnuts. The season was late and when the ground was ready for planting many had started to grow. He engaged some boys to grabble out the nuts from the sand beds, urging care, but many of the best were broken and injured.
   • 1924, United States Department of Labor, Child Labor and the Work of Mothers on Norfolk Truck Farms, Bureau Publication No. 30, Washington: Government Printing Office, p. 11, The potatoes […] are then lifted out of the soil by hand—“scratched,” “graveled,” or “grabbled” out, according to the idioms of the colored workers […]

7. (transitive, obsolete) To lift (something) out in a similar way using an implement.

8. (ambitransitive, now Southeastern US) To catch fish by reaching into the water with one's hand.