How to Use death grip in a Sentence

death grip

noun
  • He drove straight through the storm, never loosening his death grip on the steering wheel.
  • The kid still had his hands sealed in a death grip on the handles.
    Jeff Johnson, Outside Online, 11 July 2018
  • The Cardinals have won 13 of 14 games to put a death grip on the second wild-card berth in the NL.
    Tom Haudricourt, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 22 Sep. 2021
  • Hughes then took a close look at the death grip itself.
    Carl Zimmer, Discover Magazine, 9 May 2011
  • Saldivar screwed her eye into the scope and put a death grip on the rifle.
    Bryan Hendricks, Arkansas Online, 4 Dec. 2022
  • Even to me, a fan of Brutalism, Breuer’s Whitney could feel like a death grip.
    BostonGlobe.com, 1 Apr. 2021
  • Not the Arctic death grip choking the country the past week or so, but the temperature of the wine in our glass.
    Washington Post, 19 Feb. 2021
  • If this means easing some of that dividend death grip, so be it.
    Anchorage Daily News, 21 Jan. 2018
  • Being a buy-and-hold investor doesn’t obligate you to use a death grip.
    Jason Zweig, WSJ, 8 July 2022
  • Scientists call it the zombie ant death grip and say its 100% real.
    Morgan Hines, USA TODAY, 22 July 2019
  • And because neither did enough to fall out of favor or put a death grip on the role, Sarkisian will play both against Arkansas.
    Nick Moyle, San Antonio Express-News, 10 Sep. 2021
  • After a gutwrenching, life-and-death struggle, the tiger appears to grow too tired to maintain its death grip on the bear, which is pinned down and howling in distress.
    Michael Ruiz, Fox News, 26 Nov. 2020
  • Cordyceps essentially turns its host into a zombie slave, compelling the ant to climb to the top of the nearest plant and clamp its tiny jaws in a death grip around a leaf or twig.
    Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 17 July 2019
  • Trump, seeking to grow his brand of national populism and keep his death grip on the GOP, has jumped into any number of Senate races set for next fall.
    Chris Cillizza, CNN, 2 Sep. 2021
  • Some people believe that boomers and other older generations have a death grip on the world’s wealth and will never hand it over.
    New York Times, 3 Aug. 2021
  • But, death grip handshakes aside, Trump has so far been gushingly polite in his dealings with Asian leaders.
    Joseph Hincks / Seoul, Time, 11 June 2018
  • On the second play date — yes, there should be a second play date — your kid might say a few things to the other child but still, periodically, have a death grip on your leg.
    Melinda Wenner Moyer, New York Times, 9 Jan. 2020
  • While that may be true in specific circumstances, Trump's death grip on the GOP more broadly doesn't appear to be relaxing much.
    Chris Cillizza, CNN, 5 Apr. 2022
  • Since only the votes of white citizens counted, our tiny nation was ruled by a racial minority with a death grip on power.
    Alexandra Fuller, Travel + Leisure, 21 Aug. 2020
  • Walden’s touchy-feely ideology is enforced with a death grip throughout the curriculum.
    Ron Charles, Washington Post, 31 May 2022
  • And since the mere mention of an educational vacation will probably send your darlings screaming from the room with a death grip on their smart phones, what’s a parent to do?
    Juliet Izon, Good Housekeeping, 30 July 2018
  • Instead, the fungus, known as Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, mangles the ant’s jaws, causing the signature death grip that seals their fates.
    Jennifer Walter, Discover Magazine, 18 July 2019
  • Maybe our death grip on our phones, which now occupy five hours of every day, isn’t a personal failing—lack of willpower, rudeness, narcissism.
    Nitasha Tiku, WIRED, 18 Apr. 2018
  • Daphne Sullivan, the object of everyone’s collective obsession on The White Lotus, seems to have the fashion community in a death grip.
    Véronique Hyland, ELLE, 7 Dec. 2022
  • Even now that Trump has lost the election, the death grip will perhaps be slow to loosen because of his undeniable popularity with Republican voters.
    Jeannie Suk Gersen, The New Yorker, 10 Nov. 2020
  • What got me was how thoroughly Trump's arguments involved conspiracy theories hatched or spread by QAnon, the online cultlike thing that seems to be gaining a death grip on the American right.
    Star Tribune, 6 Jan. 2021
  • In Kirtzman’s account, Judith was demanding, questioned everyone’s loyalty, and seems to have had a death grip on her man, who was terrified of her displeasure.
    Louis Menand, The New Yorker, 19 Sep. 2022
  • After locking an enemy in a death grip, these ants bend and compress their abdomens so forcefully that the liquid violently ruptures out of several points on their rear-end.
    Douglas Main, Discover Magazine, 14 Sep. 2011
  • But the implacability of the act, and the meticulous deconstruction of the vehicle, reveals not only Bradley’s brute strength and boiling point, but also his director’s death grip on style and tempo.
    Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times, 5 Oct. 2017
  • There is, Kurniawan suggests, a wisp of a line between selfish cruelty and righteous violence, between voyeurism and action, between a passionate embrace and a death grip.
    Jane Yong Kim, The Atlantic, 15 Sep. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'death grip.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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