English Explanatory Dictionary

grave

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. An excavation in the earth as a place of burial.
  2. Any place of interment.
  3. Any place containing one or more corpses.
  4. Death, destruction.
  5. Deceased people; the dead.
verb
  1. To dig.
  2. To carve or cut, as letters or figures, on some hard substance; to engrave.
  3. To carve out or give shape to, by cutting with a chisel; to sculpture.
  4. To impress deeply (on the mind); to fix indelibly.
  5. To entomb; to bury.
  6. To write or delineate on hard substances, by means of incised lines; to practice engraving.
adj
  1. Characterised by a dignified sense of seriousness; not cheerful.
  2. Low in pitch, tone etc.
  3. Serious, in a negative sense; important, formidable.
  4. Dull, produced in the middle or back of the mouth. (See Grave and acute on Wikipedia.Wikipedia )
  5. Influential, important; authoritative.
noun
  1. A grave accent, the diacritic mark `.
noun
  1. A count, prefect, or person holding office.
verb
  1. 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
  1. A kilogram.
name
  1. A surname.

Pronunciation

grāv /ɡɹeɪv/ en-us-grave.ogg /ɡɹɑːv/

Word forms

grave graves graving graved graven graver gravest

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.

Synonyms

grievous plot lot austere solemn sombre frightful demure serious grave earnest lack-laughter thoughtful sad sage saturnine sedate solemncholy sober somber staid stern sweer weightsome weighty momentous important big central consequential critical crucial epochful essential extraordinary fateful fatefraught fatesome heavy pivotal high on the totem pole historic innegligible key life-or-death meaningful necessary noted noticeable observable outstanding paramount pertinent relevant remarkable salient significant unignorable valuable vital

Antonyms

acute deep flat low-pitched

Related words

groove begrave engrave engraven burgrave landgrave margrave palsgrave waldgrave graving dock

Derived words

begrave beyond the grave cold in one's grave common grave cradle-to-grave dance on someone's grave dig one's grave with a fork dig one's grave with a fork and spoon dig one's own grave follow to the grave cradle to grave the cradle to the grave gravebound grave candle graveclothes gravedance gravedancer grave dancer grave dancing grave-dancy gravedigger grave digger gravedigging gravedom graveful grave good grave-good grave-goods grave goods gravekeeper grave lantern graveless gravelike grave marker gravemound grave-rob graverobber grave robber graverobbing grave-robbing graveside gravesite gravesome gravestead gravestone graveward gravewards grave wax graveyard have one foot in the grave ingrave mass grave one foot in the grave passage grave pauper's grave quiet as a grave quiet as the grave roll in one's grave roll over in one's grave silent as a grave

Translations

Albanian: gdhend Bulgarian: изрязвам Danish: skulptere Finnish: kaivertaa French: tailler French: sculpter Irish: grábháil Italian: scolpire Macedonian: обли́кува Macedonian: дла́би Macedonian: ре́зба Middle English: graven Serbo-Croatian: oblikovati Spanish: esculpir Spanish: tallar
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