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Glite Dictionary
to come to grips

to come to grips

30 5.5
Start to accept and deal with a difficult situation
  • phrasal verb
  • /kʌm tə ɡrɪps/
translation icon : afrontar
  • After months of struggling, she finally came to grips with her anxiety and sought help.
  • come to grips with a problem
  • trying to come to grips
  • attempting to come to grips

More lenders came to grips with the reality.

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Examples

  • Humboldt County was not alone in trying to come to grips with this crisis.

    Blog text (13)

  • Contemporary politics is riven by the failure to come to grips with the problem.

    Academic text (2001)

  • Did you just come to grips with the fact that, OK, I can handle this now?

  • How long do you think it would take you to come to grips with something that huge?

    Dogma (1999)

  • Bill sounds like someone who has come to grips with the reality we face.

    Blog text (13)

  • Here is the simple truth, and you just better come to grips with it.

    Blog text (3)

  • That makes it hard for Americans to honestly face their problems and and come to grips with them.

    Robinson Erhardt

  • That was a very difficult thing for me to come to grips with because my greatest pride as a leader is the elimination of fear.

  • Only by doing so are we likely to come to grips with the basic structure of our disagreements.

    Academic text (1996)

  • You're an Angeleno, you have to come to grips with your own life situation.

    GQ

Synonyms

to grasp
vsto come to grips
146 4.1

To understand something difficult clearly

is about starting to deal or understand rather than full comprehension
to come to terms with
vsto come to grips
76 4.1

To accept a difficult or unpleasant situation

focuses on starting to deal or understand rather than on acceptance
to grapple
vsto come to grips
56 4.2

To try hard to deal with a difficult problem

means beginning to deal or understand rather than prolonged effort
to grapple with
vsto come to grips
52 6.1

To try hard to deal with a difficult problem or situation

involves starting to deal or understand rather than sustained intense effort
to get a grip on
vsto come to grips
  • Informal
13 4.0

Start to understand and control your feelings or a hard situation

focuses on beginning to deal or understand rather than on control
to get to grips with
vsto come to grips
  • UK
3 5.4

To begin to understand and deal with a difficult subject or problem

is the same meaning but uses a different idiomatic phrasing
to grasp the nettle
vsto come to grips
  • Informal
1 8.2

Face a difficult problem directly and act firmly

is about beginning to deal or understand rather than bold direct action

Antonyms

to avoid
∞ 1.0

To stay away from something or not do it to stop something bad from happening

to ignore
∞ 1.0

Choose not to pay attention to someone or something

How Handled

to resolve
623 3.3
to face
∞ 2.2
to come to grips
30 5.5
to notice
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

come to grips infinitive
came to grips past
come to grips past participle
coming to grips present participle
comes to grips third person singular

Morphology

come + to + grip

The core idea 'arrive at an understanding or begin to deal with' is plausibly derivable from 'come' (arrive) + 'grip(s)' (a controlling understanding) if a learner knows the abstract sense of 'grip'. However, the phrase is a metaphorical extension of a physical sense (grasp → mental control) and is conventionalized (often occurs as 'come to grips with'), so the relation is not entirely literal or fully predictable without exposure.

Etymology

Come to grips may come from a simple picture: someone taking a firm grip on a hard object or two people wrestling to control each other. So, when you come to grips with a problem you begin to hold it and 'deal with' or 'understand' it.