Borrowed from French grippe, from gripper ("to seize, snatch"), from Frankish *grīpan, from Proto-Germanic *grīpaną, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰreyb-.

• IPA: /ɡɹɪp/

grippe

1. (pathology, dated) Influenza, the flu. [from 18 c.]
   • 1885, Public Health, Michigan, volume 2, page 39:

     These other germs are the cause of colds and coughs and grippes.

   • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IV, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC ↗:

     "Mid-Lent, and the Enemy grins," remarked Selwyn as he started for church with Nina and the children. Austin, knee-deep in a dozen Sunday supplements, refused to stir; poor little Eileen was now convalescent from grippe, but still unsteady on her legs; her maid had taken the grippe, and now moaned all day: "Mon dieu! Mon dieu! Che fais mourir!"