grim
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɡɹɪm/
rhymes: -ɪm
Forms: form: grimmer
form: grimmest
Etymology: From Middle English grim, from Old English grimm, from Proto-West Germanic *grimm, from Proto-Germanic *grimmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrem- (“to resound, thunder, grumble, roar”).
Senses: examples: text: Life was grim in many northern industrial towns.
text: Developments were markedly different in the Soviet zone, but ultimately ended in perhaps an even grimmer dead end: that of SED leader Walter Ulbricht’s thoroughly Stalinized German Democratic Republic (GDR).
ref: 2017 May 24, Loren Balhorn, “The Lost History of Antifa”, in Jacobin Magazine:
text: Cristiana Paşca Palmer, the executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, said the destruction of the world’s biggest rainforest was a grim reminder that a fresh approach needed to stabilise the climate and prevent ecosystems from declining to a point of no return, with dire consequences for humanity.
ref: 2019 August 30, Jonathan Watts, “Amazon fires show world heading for point of no return, says UN”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 02 Dec 2019:
text: It's been a grim start to the year.
ref: 2022 January 12, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Unhappy start to 2022”, in RAIL, number 948, page 3:
synonyms: word: bleak
word: harsh
word: cheerless
word: comfortless
word: bleak
word: dark
word: depressing
word: desolate
word: dire
word: disconsolate
word: dismal
word: doleful
word: dolesome
word: drear
word: drearisome
word: dreary
word: dreich
word: forlorn
word: gayless
word: gray
word: gloomsome
word: gloomy
word: grim
word: joyless
word: lack-laughter
word: lugubrious
word: melancholy
word: mirthless
word: miserable
word: no joke
word: saturnine
word: solemn
word: somber
word: sombre
word: spiritless
word: sullen
word: sunless
word: uncheerful
word: uncheery
word: unhappy
word: unmerry
word: wintry
word: woeful
word: callous
word: cold
word: cold-eyed
word: dour
word: flint-hearted
word: forbidding
word: frosty
word: grim
word: hard
word: hard-boiled
word: hardened
word: hardhearted
word: heartless
word: harsh
word: humorless
word: icy
word: iron-hearted
word: insensitive
word: rigorous
word: rockhearted
word: severe
word: stern
word: stonehearted
word: stony
word: stonyhearted
word: strict
word: tough
word: unsympathetic
word: unmoved
glosses: Dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding.
examples: text: His grim determination enabled him to win.
synonyms: word: overwhelming
word: unbending
word: adamantine
word: concrete
word: firm
word: granitic
word: grim
word: hard
word: inflexible
word: lithic
word: resistant
word: rigid
word: robust
word: solid
word: stiff
word: stout
word: sturdy
word: stony
word: tough
word: unbending
word: unyielding
word: bateless
word: grim
word: incontestable
word: inexorable
word: invincible
word: irresistible
word: overpowering
word: overwhelming
word: potent
word: puissant
word: persistent
word: relentless
word: unrelenting
word: unremitting
word: unstoppable
word: unyielding
glosses: Rigid and unrelenting.
examples: text: A grim castle overshadowed the village.
text: There was, I thought, a trace of very profound and very genuine irony in the timbre—not the flashy, meaninglessly jaunty pseudo-irony of the callow "sophisticate," which Derby had habitually affected, but something grim, basic, pervasive and potentially evil.
ref: 1933 August (date written), H[oward] P[hillips] Lovecraft, “The Thing on the Doorstep”, in Farnsworth Wright, editor, Weird Tales: A Magazine of the Bizarre and Unusual, volume 29, number 1, Indianapolis, Ind.: Popular Fiction Pub. Co., published January 1937, →OCLC, section 4, page 62:
text: In movie terms, it suggests Paul Verhoeven in Robocop/Starship Troopers mode, an R-rated bloodbath where the grim spectacle of children murdering each other on television is bread-and-circuses for the age of reality TV, enforced by a totalitarian regime to keep the masses at bay.
ref: 2012 March 22, Scott Tobias, “The Hunger Games”, in The A.V. Club:
synonyms: word: forboding
word: malevolent
word: abandoned
word: arrant
word: bad
word: bad apple
word: bad seed
word: baleful
word: baneful
word: base
word: dark
word: deleterious
word: depraved
word: despicable
word: detrimental
word: devilish
word: diabolical
word: evil
word: flagitious
word: harmful
word: ill-intentioned
word: ill-natured
word: immoral
word: incorrigible
word: iniquitous
word: iniquous
word: injurious
word: knavish
word: malefic
word: maleficent
word: malevolent
word: malicious
word: malign
word: malignant
word: nefarious
word: niddering
word: nidering
word: niding
word: nithing
word: no-good
word: peccaminous
word: pernicious
word: reprehensible
word: reprobate
word: satanic
word: scathful
word: sinful
word: sinister
word: sordid
word: sullen
word: ungodly
word: unholy
word: vicious
word: vile
word: villainous
word: wicked
word: wrong
word: chilling
word: creepy
word: eldritch
word: freakish
word: frightening
word: grim
word: offputting
word: scary
word: sinister
word: spooky
word: unsettling
glosses: Ghastly or sinister.
examples: text: – Wanna see the dead rat I found in my fridge?
– Mate, that is grim!
text: Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; […]
ref: 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter I, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 1:
synonyms: word: foul
word: loathsome
word: abhorrant
word: abhorrent
word: bad
word: disgusting
word: distasteful
word: foul
word: rancid
word: fulsome
word: grim
word: gro
word: grody
word: gross
word: grotty
word: harsh
word: loathsome
word: munted
word: nasty
word: nauseous
word: obnoxious
word: rank
word: repulsive
word: revolting
word: scabrous
word: sickening
word: strident
word: offensive
word: unpleasant
glosses: Disgusting; gross.
synonyms: ferocious
raging
savage
violent
glosses: Fierce, cruel, furious.
Derived terms: grimdark
grim-gram
grimlike
grimly
grimmish
grimness
Grim Reaper
grimsome
grim trigger
it's grim up north
like grim death