Grep does not have a way to disable "-i", "-n" or "-r" options. Those options could look like this:
-N, --no-line-number -O, --no-ignore-case -S, --no-recursive The single letter choices are not ideal, but "-I" and "-R" were already taken. If these options existed, you could write a function like this: grep_bravo() { grep -i -n -r "$@" } then if you passed the new arguments like this: grep_bravo -N -O -S charlie delta.txt your arguments would override the function arguments, as they come after.