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grapple
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  • But she was determined to hold firm to what she knew was right, and willing to grapple with her fears and insecurities.†   (source)
  • They grappled with each other, wrestled, kicked and head-butted, and every time they connected, lightning flashed, the sky grew darker, and the wind rose.†   (source)
  • I took hold of the turtle's shell and grappled with one of its back flippers.†   (source)
  • The officer pulled his weapon and the two were grappling over the gun when it discharged, shooting the officer in the stomach.†   (source)
  • They were grappling now on the muddy earth.†   (source)
  • His mind was still grappling with the bold clarity of Saunière's outward message.†   (source)
  • What she had made was called a grappling hook, which is something used for climbing up the sides of buildings, usually for a nefarious purpose.†   (source)
  • Faced with the invitations, Savannah's social set grappled with the realization that the crowning social event of the winter season was going to take place at the scene of a notorious shooting and that barely a month later the host would go on trial for murder.†   (source)
  • Here was our pastor, clearly bright, clearly grappling with all the most thoughtful elements of religious faith, and doubt; yet, clearly, God had cursed his family.†   (source)
  • Stiff, crooked fingers that grappled clumsily with Krimpet wrappers curled naturally around the shape of a baseball.†   (source)
  • On trembling limbs, she grappled onto a nearby tree and hauled herself upright again.†   (source)
  • The hollow had used two of its tongues to grapple onto the capstones around the tunnel's mouth as leverage against the mud, and it covered the entrance with its body like a lid on a jar.†   (source)
  • Her brother shouted back and the two men grappled, until Mormont knocked Viserys bodily to the floor.†   (source)
  • Their lines coiled out into the night, and both grapples hooked the rim of the gondola and held fast.†   (source)
  • Briony nodded and faced away, as though grappling with tragedy.†   (source)
  • They would grow up grappling with ways of living with what happened.†   (source)
  • Meanwhile my mother — red-nosed and breathless from our dash through the rain—was grappling for her wallet.†   (source)
  • She has seen her grapple with the gut-wrenching decision to leave.†   (source)
  • Something aches at the very core of me, something ancient and deep and stronger than words: the filament that joins each of us to the root of existence, that ancient thing unfurling and resisting and grappling, desperately, for a foothold, a way to stay here, breathe, keep going.†   (source)
  • His befuddled brain grappled with the paradox unsuccessfully.†   (source)
  • Adam grappled with the door handle, turned it.†   (source)
  • He fetched a load of stinking fish and a rusty grappling iron into my bedroom instead.†   (source)
  • "A what?" asked Mack absentmindedly, his mind still trying to grapple with and control the pandemonium of sight and the movements of hues and shades.†   (source)
  • He joined us as we grappled with what every couple must eventually confront, the sometimes painful process of forging from two distinct pasts one shared future.†   (source)
  • The lecture, she argued, would be an unnecessary diversion from the overwhelming issues we were grappling with in our lives.†   (source)
  • She at least is something he can grapple with, take hold of.†   (source)
  • Maybe I'll never get over my grappling for balance, never stop believing life is going to be fair, the minute we can clear up all these mistakes of the temporarily misguided.†   (source)
  • He rolled in his bed, twisting the sheets, grappling with a problem years too big for him, awake in the night like a single sentinel on picket.†   (source)
  • Suddenly understanding, I put my shoe in his hands, and he pushed me up as I grappled at the wall for some stability.†   (source)
  • As we pushed alongside the tanker, I extended the pole upward, trying to angle the grappling hook at the top onto the ship's rail.†   (source)
  • ...This family is, like so many others today, attempting to grapple with the many questions and the moral and ethical issues that surround the "birth" of HeLa, and the "death" of Mrs. Lacks.†   (source)
  • And so I physically grappled with Lestat.†   (source)
  • As we grappled, sometimes as men, sometimes as wolves, I saw that he was surprised by my fierceness.†   (source)
  • Sean was becoming something like a private basketball coach to him, and Leigh Anne was grappling with the rest of his life.†   (source)
  • Even as the boy was grappling with his first doubts about his country, no one could have suspected it.†   (source)
  • Also, be on the lookout 34o for any kind of grappling-hook type stuff.†   (source)
  • Only Edward was willing to be our guinea pig—to receive shock after shock from Kate while I grappled incompetently with the insides of my head.†   (source)
  • Our path was inescapably zigzagged because Axe was always trying to find cover, stay out of the moonlight, as we grappled our way back up the cliff to way-point 3.†   (source)
  • He's still grappling with the idea of going back to get his GED now, because he's realized that education matters.†   (source)
  • In an instant, the two battle-hardened Civil War veterans grappled in a death struggle.†   (source)
  • The slave shifted knife hands, turned inside both parry and feint to grapple the na-Baron's short blade—the one in the white gloved hand that tradition said should carry the poison.†   (source)
  • I was pretty sure it was an innuendo, and I grappled for a way to change the subject.†   (source)
  • While grappling with the issue, Ne ministers came up with a solution that seemed to hold the dual promise of limiting the crowds while increasing the flow of hard currency into the impoverished national coffers: raise the fee for climbing permits.†   (source)
  • There was a terrifying innocence in Yves' face, a beautiful yielding: in some marvelous way, for Yves, this moment in this bed obliterated, cast into the sea of forgetfulness, all the sordid beds and squalid grappling which had led him here.†   (source)
  • Slowly, heir father came up the driveway, a grim expression on his face as he grappled with a large, heavy cardboard box.†   (source)
  • It was midafternoon, and the Prince had been grappling with the giant beast since morning, and finally, after all these hours, the hairy thing was weakening.†   (source)
  • As he walks, Cedric is reminded of the "wanting to be white" taunts at Ballou, about the stereotyped notions that so many people hold (movies are certainly good at pointing up those, he mulls) and how far all that is from the real issues and interactions he's grappling with.†   (source)
  • Dish finally leaped at Bert, but instead of boxing, the two men grappled and were soon rolling on the ground, neither gaining much of an advantage.†   (source)
  • Whirling upon his adversary, he grappled him in his long arms, hugging like a grizzly, and shouting: "You, Gid Himes, wha'r's my specimens?"†   (source)
  • The man held what looked like two huge rifles with grappling hooks on the ends attached to big coils of rope.†   (source)
  • August thrusts me away, and we grapple in the center of the tent.†   (source)
  • Since the funeral, she'd grappled with the extraordinary events that had led to that fateful day.†   (source)
  • It is a tight little theater of hands and arms, some martial test with formal rules of grappling.†   (source)
  • But even as my mind grappled with this, trying to work the logic, I could feel it, a visceral reaction to what had just happened, her coming closer than anyone to the truth.†   (source)
  • He might have stabbed you to death as you grappled with him on the balcony.†   (source)
  • But he was off somewhere, grappling with his own ghosts.†   (source)
  • Through the flames she saw two shapes, one black, one white, grappling like mad animals.†   (source)
  • Deputy Mike Nesbit grappled his overweight self out of the car, said, "Evenin', Jake," and lit a cigarette.†   (source)
  • A friend of law and order had grappled with her and held her down on the ground until the police arrived.†   (source)
  • President Kennedy is quick to commend Carpenter for his courage and skill, even as he grapples with Congress over the issue of affordable nationwide health care.†   (source)
  • The remaining guy pounces on me and we roll on the ground in a grapple for the top position.†   (source)
  • He had not wanted the responsibility of heading the Board of War and felt "vastly unequal" to the multitude of problems and decisions to be grappled with.†   (source)
  • He found Blackavar grappling with the other guard.†   (source)
  • Incredulous, he looked around at the maelstrom of weapon play, flames, grappling bodies, and furious shouting that had moments before been the Grand Council.†   (source)
  • Apparently he had dislodged it as he grappled with the door in the throes of his heart attack.†   (source)
  • Then they were both bucking, plunging, her hands grappling for purchase, his hips thrusting harder.†   (source)
  • Thomas's mind grappled with other issues as they ran.†   (source)
  • There's a— Katrina shrieked as a grappling hook shattered a nearby window and snapped back to anchor in the sill.†   (source)
  • I wandered past the subway and continued around the corner to Forty-second Street, my mind grappling for meaning.†   (source)
  • And so it had been for ages: every side grappling to hold the magic—until the fire twenty-five years ago.†   (source)
  • A small circle of men including Alessandro and Guariglia gathered around the sailor as he opened a locker and dragged out a long rope and a steel grappling hook.†   (source)
  • Ropes with grappling hooks were hurled over the parapet faster than men could cut them or fling them back.†   (source)
  • The public is too dumb to grapple with such issues.†   (source)
  • When a criminal and his victim are lockedtogether, grappling and struggling, it is not always easy to tell them apart.†   (source)
  • Oscar grappled up a rope to the top of the trebuchet arm, adding some initial downward motion.†   (source)
  • Firemen, policemen and other rescue workers swarmed to the scene, armed with cutting torches, grappling hooks, blankets, stretchers and bags.†   (source)
  • They grappled viciously, exchanging heavy blows before managing to lock each other close enough to render punches ineffective.†   (source)
  • I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes.†   (source)
  • Research: as his classmates grappled on with Finite Element Analysis of Structures, Ralph began watching Americans and, his English having improved, even talking to Americans — who, he was surprised to discover, actually liked to sit back, and scratch their sandy chins, and tell him what they thought a young Chinaman should know.†   (source)
  • She grappled briefly with Bloomberg, trying to coerce him into a docile lap-cat's repose.†   (source)
  • Even if the other Paws are out system, there's probably enough time for them to come in and grapple it.†   (source)
  • Fink didn't have an inch of height or reach on him, and Measure knew a few wrassling tricks, but Fink never even tried to grapple with him.†   (source)
  • (To the grappling LOVERS:) All right, no need to indulge yourselves†   (source)
  • Rope ladders, grappling hooks, and hacksaws to remove bars from the gates of rarely used sally ports had served in emergencies since the early days of the Institute.†   (source)
  • He sought to bind the energies that assailed him, but found nothing with which to grapple.†   (source)
  • I wanted to ask him to tell me in greater detail the circumstances of Maria's death—probably not knowing at the time, however, that my subconscious was already beginning to grapple with that death as the germinal idea for the novel so lamentably hanging fire on my writing table.†   (source)
  • ALAN [grappling with it]: I mean, what else has he got?†   (source)
  • He touched her bare arm tenderly, and felt her hand grapple for and take his arm.†   (source)
  • She began to imagine a war of words, to see the Polish words and the English words coming at each other, stalking forward, not sentences, just words, gabble gabble gabble, flung out high and shrill and stalking forward and then grappling with each other.†   (source)
  • ....Instead of speaking of the possibility or utility of secession, instead of dwelling in those caverns of darkness, ....let us enjoy the fresh air of liberty and union...Let us make our generation one of the strongest and brightest links in that golden chain which is destined, I fondly believe, to grapple the people of all the states to this Constitution for ages to come.†   (source)
  • He stayed with it, grappling.†   (source)
  • The consideration of these facts impresses my mind almost in the same manner as does the vain endeavour to grapple with the idea of eternity.   (source)
  • enabled to grapple with all the difficulties and solve all the problems of life   (source)
  • The next instant he was grappling with Buck on the extreme edge, while Hans and Pete were dragging them back into safety.   (source)
    grappling = holding and struggling
  • Leo dropped safely to the floor, but Dylan grappled the coach's arms instead.†   (source)
  • Athena campers threw grappling hooks around the largest giants and pulled them to the ground.†   (source)
  • The mind finds answers, the heart grapples with new truths.†   (source)
  • Groggy alarm surfaced on his face, and he grappled for his gun once more.†   (source)
  • The grappling hook hit the tower twice as it bounced back down to the ground.†   (source)
  • He was able to reach out and grapple for his son's free hand.†   (source)
  • I watched as the two men took hold of their heaving lines, each tipped with a four-pronged grapple.†   (source)
  • His face contorted as he grappled with Durza, yanking on his sword arm.†   (source)
  • He takes one of the grappling hooks, too, coiling its rope neatly.†   (source)
  • I grabbed a grappling hook from one of Annabeth's siblings.†   (source)
  • Menshikov and Desjardins grappled with each other in front of the throne.†   (source)
  • I rolled onto the tracks and grappled for something to anchor myself.†   (source)
  • He covered his throat with one hand and tried to grapple with Cujo with the other.†   (source)
  • They grappled, kicking each other's bellies with their hind legs.†   (source)
  • Xandra was leaning sideways, stumbling a bit in her high shoes and grappling for her key.†   (source)
  • Celaena grappled for a dagger, a candlestick, anything.†   (source)
  • There was a sweaty grappling for an edge to hold on to.†   (source)
  • Hiro releases the grappling hook and drops it in with him.†   (source)
  • The grappling hook hit the tower, and fell down again, hitting Violet hard in the shoulder.†   (source)
  • "What's"—he grappled with the words—"with the book?"†   (source)
  • Half his mind was still asleep and grappling with that dream.†   (source)
  • Before I could change my mind, I swung the grappling hook like a lasso.†   (source)
  • Clarisse drove to the drakon's carcass and looped a grappling line through its eye sockets.†   (source)
  • Violet's grappling hook had stuck on another hook.†   (source)
  • "She says it was a grappling hook," the hook-handed man said into the walkie-talkie.†   (source)
  • Grappling lines wrapped around the rails and the mast, digging iron claws into the hull's planks.†   (source)
  • Then the two of them were grappling, punching and clawing at each other, sliding down the hill.†   (source)
  • Meanwhile, Nico's Roman skeletons surged forward and grappled with something invisible.†   (source)
  • I said, still grappling, "how long are you home for, then?"†   (source)
  • Directly above them, Festus grappled with the earth goddess.†   (source)
  • The two grappled together, rolling across the deck.†   (source)
  • He stared at her, mind grappling with her information.†   (source)
  • Two men were fighting, grappling like dogs in the pretty playground.†   (source)
  • I used the last of my strength to grapple him as his momentum carried us both over the railing.†   (source)
  • "Why?" demanded Baldor as he grappled with another soldier.†   (source)
  • Eragon tensed, ready to grapple physically and mentally with Tenga.†   (source)
  • I think the cover acronym is Unified Nuclear Grappler or something.†   (source)
  • For ten interesting seconds, they grappled, her hands sliding off his slick skin.†   (source)
  • Looking up, she saw grappling lines shoot from the Argo II and wrap around the statue.†   (source)
  • He was holding up the grappling-hook weapon as if he were a seaman about to harpoon a whale.†   (source)
  • Grappling-hooks were hurled, and ladders raised.†   (source)
  • The two grappled—Bast slashing furiously across his face while Sobek howled in pain.†   (source)
  • And after that, I spent a few happy moments grappling with a giant.†   (source)
  • And also this" He produced a three-pronged grapple and some light but strong cord from his belt.†   (source)
  • Running to the grappling hook, he wrenched it out of the sill.†   (source)
  • Surt charged, and we both went over the side, grappling as we fell.†   (source)
  • The crew of the Argo II assembled at the rail and cut the grappling lines.†   (source)
  • When we lived with him, you read all about nuptial law to find out about his plan, and I invented a grappling hook to put a stop to it.†   (source)
  • Torn pages were flying everywhere as the books grappled with each other, locked together in furious wrestling matches and snapping aggressively.†   (source)
  • The images in purple were hard to make out, but I thought I saw two figures grappling in front of a burning chair.†   (source)
  • Again, Dudley appeared to grapple with thoughts too unwieldy for expression before mumbling, "You saved my life,"†   (source)
  • You're a man, and men grapple.†   (source)
  • His cousin leaned on his knees and clasped his hands, staring at the far wall with an expression that Eragon knew meant Roran was grappling with some difficult problem.†   (source)
  • The third button brought up a grappling hook that could be used to lock onto an enemy's chariot or push it away.†   (source)
  • Langdon and Solomon were making their way down, Langdon still grappling with the startling fact that Peter had shared with him only moments ago: Robert, buried within the hollow cornerstone of this monument, our forefathers placed a single copy of the Word—the Bible—which waits in darkness at the foot of this staircase.†   (source)
  • His mind grappled with possibilities as he crept down them: He still had a couple of Decoy Detonators, but perhaps it would be better to simply knock on the courtroom door, enter as Runcorn, and ask for a quick word with Mafalda?†   (source)
  • The slumped driver straightened at my hoarse command, his clumsy hand going instinctively for the whip, and the carriage lurched as I pulled open the door, the horses driving forward fast as I grappled with the lid of the chest, my body thrown roughly to one side, my burnt hands slipping down into the cold protecting silk, the lid coming down into concealing darkness.†   (source)
  • She threw her first javelin in grappling hook mode, knocking away a lead-weighted net that would have entangled us both.†   (source)
  • Her green rhinestone-studded glasses slipped down her fleshy nose as she grappled with a tall triangular package and a stuffed shopping bag.†   (source)
  • A few days after Lowdermilk grappled with his new dollar value, the Green Bay Packers paid $1.52 million a year over three years to buy a guard named Harry Galbraith away from the Miami Dolphins.†   (source)
  • Her daughter was always off and away in her mind, grappling with some unspoken, self-imposed problem, as though the weary, self-evident world could be reinvented by a child.†   (source)
  • I'm different in terms of trying to grapple with the big questions, the ultimate questions, the ones that won't go away.†   (source)
  • Hands grappled his body but there was still no pain, and a sudden weariness engulfed him, a sweet and delicious weariness enveloped him, caressed him, and he gave himself up to it, his face heavy now and his eyes heavy, and the weariness was beautiful, taking him, gathering him.†   (source)
  • We loaded the logs onto the trucks by hand, using peaveys or cant dogs; nowadays, Noah and Simon have shown me, they use self-loading trucks, grapple skidders, and chippers.†   (source)
  • Frits screamed and slapped his cheek, then stumbled back grappling at his collar where it had lodged against his neck.†   (source)
  • She saw the book immediately, tucked against the back wall, but as her fingers grappled onto the cover, a glimmer of candlelight traced a white line across the floor beneath her bed.†   (source)
  • Grappling hooks.†   (source)
  • Two shadowy figures were locked in combat, grappling like wrestlers, but I couldn't tell if they were trying to push each other into the chair, or trying to keep each other out of it.†   (source)
  • She was forbidden to help, and Jackson, of course, had never laundered a thing in his life; the two washes, countless rinses and the sustained two-handed grappling with the mangle, as well as the fifteen trembling minutes he had afterward at the kitchen table with bread and butter and a glass of water, took up two hours' rehearsal time.†   (source)
  • The instant he was alerted, Eragon reached out to the woman who made the discovery, and from there to the foe she grappled with.†   (source)
  • On the plane ride home that day, I made a small list on a yellow legal pad, issues and questions that we all grapple with, from happiness to aging to having children to death.†   (source)
  • At last—propelled by a sneezing fit —I sat up, pulled my sweater over my shirt and grappled under the bed to make sure the pillowcase was still there, then trudged on cold floors to the bathroom.†   (source)
  • Men grapple, and women dust.†   (source)
  • The tears grappled with her face.†   (source)
  • The rope is attached to a grappling hook that has caught in the jagged, broken fiberglass on one side of the yacht.†   (source)
  • All the Cyclopes held huge lengths of black iron chains—big enough to anchor a battleship—with grappling hooks at the ends.†   (source)
  • Bannerman grappled with it, trying to get his hands under the dog's muzzle and bring it up and out of his belly.†   (source)
  • Laughing, we grappled and ducked each other, even though my teeth were chattering and I felt way too drunk and sick to be horsing around in eight feet of water.†   (source)
  • It takes half a dozen tries to secure the grappling hook in the jagged hole, twenty feet above the waterline.†   (source)
  • Clumsily I grappled around in the wreckage—upending dusty kiddie purses and day packs, snatching my hands back at hot things and shards of broken glass, more and more troubled by the way the rubble gave under my feet in spots, and by the soft, inert lumps at the edge of my vision.†   (source)
  • Using her right hand, she threw the grappling hook as high and as hard as she could, and waited to see if it would catch onto something.†   (source)
  • As he's squatting there playing with the grappling hook, a greasy hand rises up out of the water and grabs his wrist.†   (source)
  • But a grappling hook was all Violet could think of to make without a proper inventing laboratory, and time was running short.†   (source)
  • As he grappled and thrashed —a fish out of water —I held his head up, or tried to, not knowing how, afraid of hurting him, as all the time he clutched my hand like he was dangling off a building and about to fall.†   (source)
  • It's been at least five seconds since Hiro moved, so he checks this area for grappling hooks again and resumes his circuit around the edge of the yacht.†   (source)
  • It makes a quick circuit of the yacht, looking for more grappling hooks, and actually finds one on the other side, hooked into one of the railing stanchions, a taut rope trailing out behind it into the sea.†   (source)
  • It was the spidery end of the grappling hook, which after several attempts had finally stuck onto something on the tower.†   (source)
  • "Yeah, hey!" said Martin genially, as the other guy —gray blond thug in a pea coat, coarse features out of Nordic folklore—ambled straight up to Boris, and, after grappling around at Boris's waistband, took his gun and passed it over to Martin.†   (source)
  • And the night was dark, so it was hard to see where she could toss the grappling hook and have the metal arms hook onto something.†   (source)
  • "It was a grappling hook," Violet said, and tore off a sleeve of her nightgown to make a bandage for her shoulder.†   (source)
  • This was, of course, a very risky plan, both because it was dangerous, and because she had made the grappling hook herself, instead of purchasing it at a store that sold such things.†   (source)
  • She hadn't told Klaus about her plan, because she didn't want to give him false hope, so without waking him, she gathered up her grappling hook and tiptoed out of the room.†   (source)
  • The grappling hook had worked!†   (source)
  • He wrenched it from Ser Loras's hand, and suddenly the two were grappling mount-to-mount, and an instant later they were falling.†   (source)
  • The two men grapple as Powell leaps up onto the landing and then uses the butt of his gun to pistol-whip Frederick.†   (source)
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