Gribe ("to grab, seize, catch") is a strong verb on the i–e–e ladder — gribe → greb → grebet — exactly like skrive / skrev / skrevet and bide / bed / bidt. The bare verb means physically grabbing or catching something, but most of its conversational life is in particle verbs: gribe ind, gribe fat i, gribe an, gribe til. English speakers have a helpful memory hook here — gribe is cognate with "grip" and "grab," and the core sense of seizing hold is shared right across that little family.
Principal parts
| Form | Danish | English |
|---|---|---|
| Infinitive | (at) gribe | to grab / catch |
| Present | griber | grab(s) / catch(es) |
| Past | greb | grabbed / caught |
| Past participle | grebet | grabbed / caught |
| Imperative | grib! | grab! / catch! |
Present: griber
| Subject | Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| jeg | griber | jeg griber bolden, hvis du kaster |
| du | griber | du griber altid fat i det vigtige |
| han / hun | griber | hun griber ind, hvis det går galt |
| vi | griber | vi griber chancen nu |
| de | griber | de griber til drastiske midler |
Kast bolden, så griber jeg den!
Throw the ball and I'll catch it!
Hun griber altid fat i de vigtige problemer først.
She always grabs hold of the important problems first.
Past: greb
Han greb fat i gelænderet, lige før han faldt.
He grabbed hold of the railing just before he fell.
Politiet greb ind, før det udviklede sig.
The police intervened before it escalated.
Present perfect: har grebet
The perfect is har grebet — gribe is agentive and transitive, so it takes har, never være.
Du har grebet sagen helt forkert an.
You've approached the matter completely the wrong way.
Vi har grebet chancen, mens den var der.
We seized the chance while it was there.
Imperative: grib!
Grib! Den er på vej ned mod dig.
Catch! It's coming down towards you.
The essential particle verbs
This is where gribe really lives. Each combination must be learned as a unit, because the meaning is not predictable from the parts.
- gribe ind — to intervene, step in
- gribe fat i — to grab hold of (literally or figuratively, "get to grips with")
- gribe an — to approach, tackle (a task or problem)
- gribe chancen / gribe muligheden — to seize the chance / opportunity
- gribe til — to resort to, turn to (a measure)
Hvordan griber vi det her an?
How do we tackle this?
Læreren måtte gribe ind, da skænderiet brød ud.
The teacher had to step in when the argument broke out.
Vi bliver nødt til at gribe til en plan B.
We'll have to resort to a plan B.
Hun greb muligheden og sagde ja på stedet.
She seized the opportunity and said yes on the spot.
gribe vs fange vs tage
English "catch" and "take" both crowd into this space, so keep the Danish verbs distinct:
- gribe = catch by grabbing in mid-air, or seize/grasp — gribe bolden, gribe chancen.
- fange (regular: fanger / fangede / fanget) = catch in the sense of capturing something that was getting away — fange en fisk, fange en tyv, fange en bus. You fange a train you are about to miss; you griber a ball thrown to you.
- tage = the neutral "take" — tage bolden would just mean picking it up, not catching it in flight. See Tage.
Han fangede tre fisk, men jeg fangede ingen.
He caught three fish, but I caught none.
Hun greb tasken og fangede bussen i sidste sekund.
She grabbed the bag and caught the bus at the last second.
Common mistakes
❌ Han gribede fat i rebet.
Incorrect — gribe is strong; the past is greb, not the regular -ede form.
✅ Han greb fat i rebet.
He grabbed hold of the rope.
❌ Politiet er grebet ind.
Wrong auxiliary — gribe takes har in the perfect: har grebet ind.
✅ Politiet har grebet ind.
The police have intervened.
❌ Hvordan griber vi det?
Missing particle — to mean 'tackle/approach' you need gribe an: Hvordan griber vi det an?
✅ Hvordan griber vi det an?
How do we approach this?
❌ Jeg skal lige gribe bussen.
Wrong verb — you catch a bus you might miss with fange, not gribe: fange bussen.
✅ Jeg skal lige fange bussen.
I just need to catch the bus.
❌ Du har gribet det helt forkert an.
Wrong participle — it's grebet, not gribet.
✅ Du har grebet det helt forkert an.
You've approached it completely wrong.
Key takeaways
- Gribe / greb / grebet — strong, i–e–e, the cognate of English grip/grab.
- Perfect is always har grebet.
- Learn the particle verbs as units: gribe ind (intervene), gribe fat i (grab hold of), gribe an (tackle), gribe til (resort to). See phrasal verbs.
- Catch a thrown ball or a chance with gribe; catch a fish, a thief or a bus with fange.
Now practice Danish
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Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- Strong Verbs: Ablaut PatternsA2 — Danish strong verbs form their past by changing the stem vowel — learn the major ablaut series as families to turn memorisation into pattern recognition.
- TageA2 — Full reference for the strong verb tage ('to take'), the silent -g, and its central role in talking about transport.
- Phrasal Verbs and ParticlesB1 — Danish verb + particle combinations, the stress rule that distinguishes a separable phrasal verb from a verb + preposition, and the most common particles and their meanings.
- SkriveA1 — Full reference for skrive ('to write') — principal parts, the strong i–e–e past skrev, all core tenses in natural sentences, the series-mates that follow the same pattern, and everyday particle verbs like skrive under and skrive sig op.
- BideB1 — Full reference for the strong verb bide ('to bite') — bider / bed / bidt — with its key idioms bide mærke i ('take note of'), bide tænderne sammen ('grit one's teeth') and bide negle ('bite one's nails').