Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) to disgust.

1905

19101920193019401950

1958

1905		R. Beach Pardners (1912) 29: It gripes me to hear a man cry.
1934		L. Berg Prison Nurse (1964) 114: You bellyachers gripe me.
1958		W. Talsman Gaudy Image (1966) 71: That puff ball and his fat words. He griped me.

2. (orig. US) to complain, to make a fuss; thus griping adj., complaining.

1912

19201930194019501960197019801990

2000

1912–16		in E. Wilson Prelude (1967) 125: gripe, crab.
1933		J. Conroy Disinherited 134: They’re gettin’ tired of your gripin’.
1943		C. McCullers Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1986) 232: The big kids griped whenever they had to eat in the kitchen.
1953		R. Chandler Long Good-Bye 201: The weather was hot and sticky [...] Everybody was griping about it.
1965		H. Rhodes Chosen Few (1966) 12: If the Japs gripe about those two bombs [...] they’re called bitter too.
1977		J. Sayles Union Dues (1978) 57: Theopolis told a griping story about a job counselor he’d been sent to who wouldn’t get off his back.
1991		B. Hamper Rivethead (1992) 109: We fell back into our old routine of gripin’ and groanin’ about every vestige of assembly labor.
2000		Guardian Guide 5–11 Feb. 81: Ian, gripes straight-talking carpenter Chris, is all mouth and trousers.

3. (US) to anger, to annoy.

1939

1940195019601970

1977

1939		Goodman & Kolodin Kingdom of Swing 104: It was his habit, whenever anything griped him or somebody did something he didn’t like, to pick out the musician nearest to him and say: ‘Pack up your instrument and get out’.
c.1943		‘Bill O. Lading’ You Chirped a Chinful!! n.p.: Gripes me: Gets me sore.
1949		H. Miller Sexus (1969) 131: God, how it must gripe you to get up every morning and go to work!
1951		E. Hemingway letter 11/12 Apr. in Baker Sel. Letters (1981) 724: It gripes me every day to have that jerk use it.
1965		(con. 1930s) R. Wright Lawd Today 31: What’s griping you?
1977		in K. Gilbert Living Black 28: That was another thing to gripe with them about [...] because they said they were not blackfellers, they were Chinamen.