Dictionary

grippe en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ɡɹɪp/

Etymology

Borrowed from French grippe, from gripper (“to seize, snatch”), from Frankish *grīpan, from Proto-Germanic *grīpaną, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰreyb- (“to grab, to grasp”). Borrowed from French into many languages of the world. More at gripe.

Meanings

1. (countable, dated, uncountable) Influenza, the flu.
   • [T]hat day was the only holiday I had all the time I was in camp - except when I had the ‘grippe’ and nearly pegged out. 1933, Frank Clune, Try Anything Once, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 80:
   • These other germs are the cause of colds and coughs and grippes. 1885, Public Health, Michigan, volume 2, page 39:
   • "Mid-Lent, and the Enemy grins," remarked Selwyn as he started for church with Nina and the children. Austin, knee-deep in a dozen Sunday supplements, refused to stir; poor little Eileen was now convalescent from grippe, but still unsteady on her legs; her maid had taken the grippe, and now moaned all day: "Mon dieu! Mon dieu! Che fais mourir!" 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IV, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

Forms

Deriveds

grippy · grippal

Relateds

cold · catarrh · Spanish fever