gripe

[Victor Steinbok]

  I am most used to the meaning of the verb "gripe" as a version of
"complain". That seems to correspond to definition 10. of OED "gripe
v.1" entry.

> 10. intr. To complain, ‘grouse’. So {sm}griping vbl. n. slang (orig.
> U.S.).
> 1932 Amer. Speech June 332 Gripe, to complain. 1934 F. SCOTT
> FITZGERALD Tender is Night II. i. 153 In some moods he griped at his
> own reasoning: Could I help it. 1940 New Yorker 21 Sept. 37 He got
> good and sore and griped. 1945 E. FORD Larry Scott v. 51 I've already
> told him that the newspaper game is a lousy business, so you can save
> your griping for somebody else. 1947 D. M. DAVIN Gorse blooms Pale 199
> Old Snow was griping away about his girl turning him down. 1959 Times
> Lit. Suppl. 20 Nov. 678/1 Let us get the griping over quickly. 1963
> Time 30 Aug. 18/2 Ike..griped publicly: ‘There are too many of these
> generals who have all sorts of ideas.’ 1967 Boston Traveler 27/2
> People are always griping about kids hanging around and being at the
> wrong places at the wrong time.

The only other subentry that has any pretense of "modern" support
quotations is #7.

> 7. To grieve, afflict, distress.
> 1559 Mirr. Mag., Mowbray's Banishm. xxix, Grief gryped me so, I pyned
> awaye and dyed. 1567 DRANT Horace, Art of Poetry Bvj, Those which
> inwardly with griefe Are gryped in their minde. 1593 SHAKES. 3 Hen.
> VI, I. iv. 171 How inly Sorrow gripes his Soule. 1671 J. FLAVEL Fount.
> Life xxiii. 70 How sick was his conscience as soon as he had swallowed
> it! It grip'd him to the heart. 1871 B. TAYLOR Faust I. ix. 150 What
> ails thee? What is 't gripes thee, elf? A face like thine beheld I
> never. 1905 R. BEACH Pardners (1912) i. 29. It gripes me to hear a man
> cry. 1941 J. M. CAIN Mildred Pierce (1943) 88 What's griping him is
> that he can't do anything for the kids.

This appears to be very close to the usage that brought me to look it up:

http://bit.ly/9JfINv
> "I had nothing to do with the filing of the petition. *It really
> gripes me* that people accuse me of having had something to do with
> that," Marshall said. "Had I wanted to get this done it would have
> been done a long time ago. It would not have been brought up at the
> very last minute."

I don't know how common the expression is in general, but I have never
heard #7 in the Northeast, although #10 is quite common. I might have
heard it on TV ... once. Has it become a regionalism? Or is it yet again
just my sheltered existence?

VS-)

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