Noun: clasp
| Singular | clasp |
| Plural | clasps |
Sample Sentences
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I always have a hard time working the clasp on this necklace!
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He took her hand in a firm clasp.
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How few! yet how they creep / Through my fingers to the deep, / While I weep—while I weep! / O God! can I not grasp / Them with a tighter clasp? [1849 March 31, Edgar Allan Poe, “A Dream Within a Dream”, in The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe: […], volumes II (Poems and Miscellanies), New York, N.Y.: J. S. Redfield, […], published 1850, →OCLC, page 40:]
Nouns inflected like clasp
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
Noun dated ca. 1300 and verb dated ca. 1400; from Middle English claspe (“metal catch or hook used to hold things together”), possible metathesis of clapse, which comes from or related to Old English clyppan (“clasp”) (also see clip (verb)). Related to English enclasp (“embrace, hold tightly in one's arms”). Compare hasp, of very similar meaning but older known provenance. See: Middle English Nouns '
claspe', Old English Nouns '
clyppan'.