gravelly
/ˈɡɹævəli/ adjective
Forms gravely
- adjective Full of, covered with, or similar to gravel or pebbles.
- adjective Of a voice: unpleasantly harsh or rasping.
- adjective (pathology) Caused by or involving gravel (“kidney stones”).
- adjective (obsolete) Full of or covered with sand; sandy.
Synonyms
gravelish gravelous pebbly shingly grating rasping raspy rough scratchy
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English gravelli (“covered with gravel or sand; (pathology) containing sand-like matter”), from gravel (“sand; grain of stand; gravel, pebbles; (pathology) sand-like matter in the urine, calculus”) + -lī (suffix forming adjectives). Gravel is derived from Old French gravel, gravele, gravelle (“gravel; (pathology) calculus”) (modern French gravelle (“(pathology) calculus”)), from grave (“coarse sand, gravel; seashore”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʰreh₁w- (“to grind”); modern French grève (“riverbank; shore, strand”)) + -ele (diminutive suffix). The English word is analysable as gravel + -y (suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘having the quality of’).
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Abounding with gravel; consisting of gravel; as, a gravelly soil.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “gravelly”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details