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Grave

//ɡɹeɪv// adj, name, noun, verb

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Characterised by a dignified sense of seriousness; not cheerful.

    "[Mercuti] Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man."

  2. 2
    Low in pitch, tone etc.

    "The thicker the cord or string, the more grave is the note or tone."

  3. 3
    Serious, in a negative sense; important, formidable.

    "Israel’s behaviour is doing grave damage to the Palestinian people and to any hope for peace."

  4. 4
    Dull, produced in the middle or back of the mouth. (See Grave and acute on Wikipedia.Wikipedia) dated
  5. 5
    Influential, important; authoritative. obsolete

    "An illiterate fool sits in a mans seat; and the common people hold him learned, grave, and wise."

Adjective
  1. 1
    causing fear or anxiety by threatening great harm wordnet
  2. 2
    of great gravity or crucial import; requiring serious thought wordnet
  3. 3
    dignified and somber in manner or character and committed to keeping promises wordnet
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname.
Noun
  1. 1
    An excavation in the earth as a place of burial. countable, uncountable

    "He had lain in the grave four days."

  2. 2
    A grave accent, the diacritic mark `.
  3. 3
    A count, prefect, or person holding office. historical
  4. 4
    A kilogram. obsolete

    "At the origin of the metric system the new unit of weight was called the grave, and was equivalent to the kilogram. The denomination grave would in some respects have been preferable to kilogram."

  5. 5
    a place for the burial of a corpse (especially beneath the ground and marked by a tombstone) wordnet
Show 6 more definitions
  1. 6
    Any place of interment. broadly, countable, uncountable
  2. 7
    a mark (‘) placed above a vowel to indicate pronunciation wordnet
  3. 8
    Any place containing one or more corpses. countable, uncountable
  4. 9
    death of a person wordnet
  5. 10
    Death, destruction. broadly, uncountable

    "[…]Meeting is pleasure, parting is a grief; / An inconstant lover is worse than a thief; / A thief can but rob you, and take all you have, / An inconstant lover will bring you to the grave![…]"

  6. 11
    Deceased people; the dead. broadly, uncountable

    ""Hold your jaw, woman! I've had enough to vex me to-day without you startin' your tantrums. You're jealous of the grave. That's wot's the matter with you." "And her brats can insult me as they like - me that 'as cared for you these five years.""

Verb
  1. 1
    To dig. obsolete, transitive

    "He hath graven and digged up a pit."

  2. 2
    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. obsolete, transitive
  3. 3
    carve, cut, or etch into a material or surface wordnet
  4. 4
    To carve or cut, as letters or figures, on some hard substance; to engrave. intransitive, obsolete

    "Thou shalt take two onyx stones, and grave on them the names of the children of Israel."

  5. 5
    shape (a material like stone or wood) by whittling away at it wordnet
Show 4 more definitions
  1. 6
    To carve out or give shape to, by cutting with a chisel; to sculpture. obsolete, transitive

    "to grave an image"

  2. 7
    To impress deeply (on the mind); to fix indelibly. intransitive, obsolete

    "O! may they graven in thy heart remain."

  3. 8
    To entomb; to bury. obsolete, transitive

    "[…]And lie full low, graved in the hollow ground."

  4. 9
    To write or delineate on hard substances, by means of incised lines; to practice engraving. intransitive, obsolete

Etymology

Etymology 1

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.

Etymology 2

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”).

Etymology 3

From Middle French grave, a learned borrowing from Latin gravis (“heavy, important”). Compare Old French greve (“terrible, dreadful”). Doublet of grief.

Etymology 4

From Middle French grave, a learned borrowing from Latin gravis (“heavy, important”). Compare Old French greve (“terrible, dreadful”). Doublet of grief.

Etymology 5

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”)).

Etymology 6

* As an English surname, from Middle English greyve (“steward”). * Also as an English surname, variant of Grove. * As a French surname, from the noun gravier (“gravel”). * As a north German surname, variant of Graf; also from the Low German noun Graf (“ditch, grave”) (see grave).

See also for "grave"

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