Grimness

noun

noun ·2 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The characteristic or quality of being grim. uncountable, usually

    "This one was almost featureless, as if still in the making, with an aspect of monotonous grimness."

  2. 2
    something hard to endure wordnet
  3. 3
    the quality of being ghastly wordnet

Example

More examples

"The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness—a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility."

Etymology

From Middle English grimnesse, from Old English grimnes (“severity, fierceness, cruelty”), equivalent to grim + -ness.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.