grasp of

a (good/solid/sound/etc.) grasp of/on (something)

A firm, clear understanding or determination of something. I hope everyone has a solid grasp of the material, as you'll be tested on it next week. I thought I had a pretty good grasp on English idioms, but I don't understand this one at all!
See also: grasp, of, on, solid, sound
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

*(solid) grasp of something

 and *(sound) grasp of something; *(good) grasp of something
Fig. a firm understanding of something. (*Typically: get ~; have ~; give someone ~.) Try to get a grasp of the basic rules. You don't have a good grasp of the principles yet. John was unable to get a solid grasp of the methods used in his work, and we had to let him go.
See also: grasp, of
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • grasp
  • have a (good/solid/sound/etc.) grasp of/on (something)
  • a (good/solid/sound/etc.) grasp of/on (something)
  • have a grasp of
  • get a (good/solid/sound/etc.) grasp of/on (something)
  • have a clue
  • not have a clue
  • lay (one's) hands on (someone or something)
  • lay hands on
  • have a firm grip on (someone or something)
References in periodicals archive
Quite simply, technology is the turning into practice a human society's mental grasp of its natural world.
That Watkin has managed to pull it off is a tribute to his grasp of the wider picture.
Exploring the vast conceptual development of 20th-century libraries movements and modern progressive fundamentals, The Whole Library Handbook 4 concerns the innovative grasp of the ideals and perspective contrast of the innovative and adaptive modern library system.
With a scholarly knowledge of the gospels and a firm grasp of contemporary social-science research on first-century Palestine, Herzog introduces us to a Jesus who is deeply grounded in the covenantal justice of Moses and the prophets, and who encourages the oppressed and chastises their oppressors.
5) Pure fantasy: Once students begin to feel they have a clear grasp of a particular movement, they could be placed in groups and asked to imagine and describe a work that would represent the movement in its purest form and then to create a spectrum along which they could place the actual adherents in relation to the nonexistent work.
The TUC warned that safety messages could be going over workers' heads, especially those with a limited grasp of English.
It is indeed true that a real problem with Catholic education today is that large numbers of parents, students, as well as some educators and trustees, have only a vague grasp of what most of us would call the Catholic faith.
But, where did the terms go once they were "canceled?" When trying to solve "real-world" problems, it became apparent that he did not have a basic grasp of numerical fractions.
He obviously has no grasp of the situation of grouse shooting whatsoever.
Even where her argument appears to be pointing toward the key issues, Altegoer skirts them without showing any real grasp of their significance.
One of the things I find most valuable about Delany, apart from his incredibly wide-ranging mind, his thoroughgoing grasp of so many different subjects, is his independence of thought, his terribly honest self-scrutiny, his relentless interrogation of the myths we tend to live by--both the myths that facilitate oppression and the countermyths that purport to liberate us (myths of "race," gender, culture, etc.).
In an interview with the Financial Times, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill demonstrated his grasp of the key issue: that financial crises do not "have anything to [do] with the failure of capitalism.
His method is to tell us how he passes from a kind of respectful bewilderment to a grasp of the deeper meaning of their comments (which he invariable seems to have recorded).
The answer, as he sees it, is that it is through the grasp of the respective time-signature that we remember one and not the other (p.