grisly
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɡɹɪzli/
rhymes: -ɪzli
homophone: grizzly
Forms: form: grislier
form: grisliest
form: griesly
form: grislie
Etymology: From Middle English grisely, grysly, grissliȝ, griselich, grislich, from Old English grisliċ (“grisly, horrible; dreadful, horrid”), from grīsan (“to shudder with horror; to tremble, to be terrified; to make tremble, to terrify; to agrise, grise”) (unattested but implied in āgrīsan) + -lic (suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘characteristic of, pertaining to’).
The word may also be an aphetic form of Old English ongrislic, agrisenliċ, the past participle of agrīsan (“to agrise”).
Compare Danish grusom, Swedish gräslig, Middle Dutch grezelijc (modern Dutch griezelig), Middle High German grisenlich (modern German grässlich, grausen).
Senses: examples: text: The photographs of the killings depict a grisly scene.
text: Magnes and many thinges attractive are, / But nothing ſo allective under ſkyes, / As that ſame dainty amiable ſtarre, / That none but griſly mouth of hell defyes.
ref: 1588, G[abriel] H[arvey], “[Greenes Memoriall; Or Certaine Funerall Sonnets.] Sonnet XVII. His Exhortation to Atonement and Love.”, in J[ohn] P[ayne] C[ollier], editor, Fovre Letters, and Certaine Sonnets, […] (Miscellaneous Tracts Temp. Eliz. & Jac. I), [London]: [s.n.], published [1870], →OCLC, page 77:
text: Then clad in cloake of mistie fogges the darke night vp did come, / And with grim grislie looke did seeme to bid me get me home; […]
ref: 1610, Richard Niccols, “The Indvction”, in A Winter Nights Vision; being an Addition of such Princes Especially Famous, who were Exempted in the Former Historie, part IV, London: Felix Kyngston, →OCLC; republished as Joseph Haslewood, editor, Mirror for Magistrates, volume II, part II, London: Printed for Lackington, Allen, and Co. Finsbury Square; and Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orms, and Brown, Paternoster Row, 1815, →OCLC, page 548:
text: It was sore travelling for horse and man under the blazing sun, with no food nor water save what he pressed from the pith of the palms, and even these were growing scarce. The only life on the plains was the hard and dusty scrub. Every hour brought a more hopeless and grislier desolation.
ref: 1878, John Boyle O'Reilly, “On the Trail”, in Moondyne: A Story from the Under-world, London: George Routledge and Sons, published 1879, →OCLC; republished as Moondyne: A Story of Convict Life in Australia, London: George Routledge & Sons, Limited, Broadway House, Ludgate Hill, [1880s], →OCLC, book first, pages 23–24:
text: We know too well the bestial assault you are making upon the Russian people, to whom our hearts go out in their valiant struggle. We will have no truce or parley with you, or the grisly gang who work your wicked will. You do your worst and we will do our best.
ref: 1941, Winston Churchill, The Unrelenting Struggle:
text: In his [Galway Kinnell's] new book, Body Rags, he has brought this style to a kind of perfection, especially in two poems about the killing of animals, "The Porcupine" and "The Bear." These are the grisliest poems I have ever read.
ref: 1968 summer, Hayden Carruth, “Making It New”, in The Hudson Review, volume XXI, number 2, New York, N.Y.: Hudson Review, Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC; reprinted as “From ‘Making It New’ [Body Rags]”, in Howard Nelson, editor, On the Poetry of Galway Kinnell: The Wages of Dying (Under Discussion), Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1987, →ISBN, page 75:
text: Perhaps you have to have seen the first film to like this one; to feel, like the young fans of Harry Potter, that without knowing or wanting it, you have grown up with its grisly protagonists.
ref: 2017 January 19, Peter Bradshaw, “T2 Trainspotting review – choose a sequel that doesn’t disappoint”, in The Guardian, London, archived from the original on 20 Jan 2017:
text: Ireland’s capital is no longer in lockdown but the grisly sport continues.
ref: 2023 September 20, Rory Carroll, “‘It’s almost every day’: foreign delivery riders face gang attacks in Dublin”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
synonyms: word: grisy
word: gristly
word: grizzly
english: misspellings
translation: misspellings
word: affreux
word: alarming
word: spine-tingling
word: appalling
word: awful
word: buggish
word: butt-clenching
word: buttock-clenching
word: dismayful
word: dreadful
word: fearful
word: flaysome
word: flesh-crawling
word: formidable
word: freaky
word: frightening
word: frightensome
word: frightful
word: ghastly
word: ghostly
word: grisly
word: hair-curling
word: hair-raising
word: horrible
word: horrid
word: horrific
word: horrifying
word: horripilating
word: pulse-pounding
word: scaring
word: scary
word: shocking
word: skin-crawling
word: terrible
word: terrifying
word: terrorsome
glosses: Horrifyingly repellent; gruesome, terrifying.
examples: text: old squirrels that turn grisly
ref: 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:
text: The animals found in this province are, deer, elk, buffalo, cabrie, the grisly black bear, and wild horses.
ref: 1830, Josiah Conder, The Modern Traveller: Mexico (continued), Guatemala, page 84:
glosses: Obsolete form of grizzly.
glosses: Misspelling of gristly.
Derived terms: grislily
grisliness
ungrisly
Related terms: grise