grip

n 1: the act of grasping; "he released his clasp on my arm"; "he

has a strong grip for an old man"; "she kept a firm hold

on the railing" [syn: {clasp}, {clench}, {clutch}, {clutches},

{grasp}, {hold}]

2: the part of an object designed to be held in order to use or

move it [syn: {handle}, {handgrip}, {hold}]

3: a portable rectangular traveling bag for carrying clothes;

"he carried his small bag onto the plane with him" [syn: {bag},

{traveling bag}, {suitcase}]

4: the friction between a body and the surface on which it

moves (as between an automobile tire and the road) [syn: {traction},

{adhesive friction}]

5: a firm controlling influence; "he was in the grip of a

powerful emotion" or "a terrible power had her its grasp"

[syn: {grasp}]

v 1: hold fast or firmly; "He gripped the steering wheel"

2: to grip or seize, as in a wrestling match; "the two men

grappled with each other for several minutes" [syn: {grapple}]

3: to render motionless, as with a fixed stare or by arousing

terror or awe: "The eye of the Ancient Mariner fascinated

the wedding guest." Burton; "The serpent fascinates its

prey,..by the power of his eyes." Todd & Bowman [syn: {fascinate},

{transfix}, {spellbind}]

4: hold firmly [syn: {grasp}, {hold on}]

gzip

{GNU} compression utility. Gzip reduces

the size of the named files using {Lempel-Ziv} {LZ77

compression}. Whenever possible, each file is replaced by one

with the {filename extension} ".gz". Compressed files can be

restored to their original form using gzip -d or gunzip or

zcat.

The Unix "{compress}" utility is patented (by two separate

patents, in fact) and is thus shunned by the GNU Project since

it is not {free software}. They have therefore chosen gzip,

which is free of any known {software patent}s and which tends

to compress better anyway. All compressed files in the {GNU}

{anonymous FTP} area (gnu.org/pub/gnu) are in gzip

format and their names end in ".gz" (as opposed to

"compress"-compressed files, which end in ".Z").

Gzip can uncompress "compress"-compressed files and "pack"

files (which end in ".z"). The decompression algorithms are

not patented, only compression is.

The gzip program is available from any {GNU archive site} in

{shar}, {tar}, or gzipped tar format (for those who already

have a prior version of gzip and want faster data

transmission). It works on virtually every {Unix} system,

{MS-DOS}, {OS/2} and {VMS}.