grave
/ɡɹeɪv/ noun, verb, adjective, proper noun
Forms graves graving graved graven graver gravest
- noun (strictly) An excavation in the earth as a place of burial.
- noun (loosely) Any place of interment.
- noun (very loosely) Any place containing one or more corpses.
- noun (uncountable, by extension) Death, destruction.
- noun (by extension, uncountable) Deceased people; the dead.
- verb (transitive) To dig.
- verb (intransitive) To carve or cut, as letters or figures, on some hard substance; to engrave.
- verb (transitive) To carve out or give shape to, by cutting with a chisel; to sculpture. “to grave an image”
- verb (intransitive) To impress deeply (on the mind); to fix indelibly.
- verb (transitive) To entomb; to bury.
- verb (intransitive) To write or delineate on hard substances, by means of incised lines; to practice engraving.
- adjective Characterised by a dignified sense of seriousness.
- adjective Low in pitch, tone etc.
- adjective Serious, in a negative sense; important, formidable.
- adjective (phonology, dated, of a sound) Dull, produced in the middle or back of the mouth. (See Grave and acute on Wikipedia.Wikipedia )
- adjective (obsolete) Influential, important; authoritative.
- noun A grave accent, the diacritic mark `.
- noun (historical) A count, prefect, or person holding office.
- verb (transitive, obsolete, nautical) To clean, as a vessel's bottom, of barnacles, grass, etc., and pay it over with pitch — so called because graves or greaves were formerly used for this purpose.
- noun (obsolete) A kilogram.
Synonyms
plot lot grievous austere solemn sombre frightful demure serious earnest lack-laughter thoughtful sad sage saturnine sedate solemncholy sober somber staid tomb grave accent sculpt sculpture scratch engrave inscribe dangerous severe life-threatening
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English grave, grafe, from Old English græf, grafu (“cave, grave, trench”), from Proto-West Germanic *grab, from Proto-Germanic *grabą, *grabō (“grave, trench, ditch”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrebʰ- (“to dig, scratch, scrape”). Cognate with West Frisian grêf (“grave”), Dutch graf (“grave”), Low German Graf (“a grave”), Graff, German Grab (“grave”), Danish, Swedish and Norwegian grav (“grave”), Icelandic gröf (“grave”). Related to groove.
From Middle English graven, from Old English grafan (“to dig, dig up, grave, engrave, carve, chisel”), from Proto-Germanic *grabaną (“to dig”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrebʰ- (“to dig, scratch, scrape”). Cognate with Dutch graven (“to dig”), German graben (“to dig”), Danish grave (“to dig”), Swedish gräva (“to dig”), Icelandic grafa (“to dig”).
From Middle French grave, a learned borrowing from Latin gravis (“heavy, important”). Compare Old French greve (“terrible, dreadful”). Doublet of grief.
Inherited from Middle English greyve. Doublet of graaf (borrowed from the Dutch cognate graaf (“count, earl”)) and graf (borrowed from the German cognate Graf (“count, earl”)).
Webster’s 1913
- verb (Naut.) To clean, as a vessel's bottom, of barnacles, grass, etc., and pay it over with pitch; --so called because graves or greaves was formerly used for this purpose.
- adjective Of great weight; heavy; ponderous. [Obs.]
- adjective Of importance; momentous; weighty; influential; sedate; serious; - -said of character, relations, etc.; as, grave deportment, character, influence, etc. Most potent, grave, and reverend seigniors. Shak.
- verb To dig. [Obs.] Chaucer.
Etymology [F., fr. L. gravis heavy; cf. It. & Sp. grave heavy, grave. See Grief.]
Etymology [AS. grafan to dig, grave, engrave; akin to OFries. greva, D. graven, G. graben, OHG. & Goth. graban, Dan. grabe, Sw. gräfva, Icel. grafa, but prob. not to Gr. gra`fein to write, E. graphic. Cf. Grave, n., Grove, n.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “grave”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details