grim

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ɡɹɪm/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪm

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”).

grim (comparative grimmer, superlative grimmest)

1. Dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding.

   Synonyms: bleak, harsh; see also Thesaurus:cheerless, Thesaurus:stern

   Life was grim in many northern industrial towns.

   • 2017 May, Loren Balhorn, “The Lost History of Antifa”, in Jacobin Magazine‎^[1]:

     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).

   • 2019 August 30, Jonathan Watts, “Amazon fires show world heading for point of no return, says UN”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎^[2], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2 December 2019:

     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.

   • 2022 January 12, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Unhappy start to 2022”, in RAIL, number 948, page 3:

     It's been a grim start to the year.

2. Rigid and unrelenting.

   Synonyms: overwhelming, unbending; see also Thesaurus:hard, Thesaurus:relentless

   His grim determination enabled him to win.

3. Ghastly or sinister.

   Synonyms: forboding, malevolent; see also Thesaurus:evil, Thesaurus:eerie

   A grim castle overshadowed the village.

   • 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:

     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.

   • 2012 March 22, Scott Tobias, “The Hunger Games”, in The A.V. Club‎^[3]:

     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.

4. Disgusting; gross.

   Synonyms: foul, loathsome; see also Thesaurus:unpleasant

   – Wanna see the dead rat I found in my fridge?
   – Mate, that is grim!

   • 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:

     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; […]

5. (obsolete) Fierce, cruel, furious.

   Synonyms: ferocious, raging, savage, violent; see also Thesaurus:angry, Thesaurus:ferocious, Thesaurus:savage

   • 1535 October 14 (Gregorian calendar), Myles Coverdale, transl., Biblia: The Byble, […] (Coverdale Bible), [Cologne or Marburg]: [Eucharius Cervicornus and Johannes Soter?], →OCLC, Zachary [Zechariah] ij:[11], folio xcvij, recto:

     The LORDE shall be grymme vpon them, and destroye all the goddes in the londe. And all the Iles of the Heithen shal worshipe him, euery man in his place.

   • 1907 [1624], John Smith, chapter 5, in The General Historie of Virginia, New England and The Summer Isles‎^[4], volume 1, New York: Macmillan Company:

     The first people we saw were two grim and stout Salvages upon Cape Charles, with long poles like Javelings, headed with bone, they boldly demanded what we were, and what we would […]

   • 1897 [1637], John Milton, edited by Homer B[axter] Sprague, Milton's Lycidas, Boston: Ginn & Company, pages 22–23, lines 128–129:

     Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw / Daily devours apace, and nothing said.

grim (third-person singular simple present grims, present participle grimming, simple past and past participle grimmed)

1. (transitive, rare) To make grim; to give a stern or forbidding aspect to.

grim (plural grims)

1. (MLE, slang, probably a fashionable word around 2006, now dated) A promiscuous woman.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:promiscuous woman

   • 2006 July 1, “Grim” (track 8), in Wiley (lyrics), Eskiboy: Da 2nd Phaze‎^[5]:

     You got a new girl and she looks choong (Choong)
     But you didn't know your girl was a grim
     […]
     Your girl she's a grim, I wouldn't have no grim as my ting

From Middle English grim, grym, greme, from Old English *grimu, *grimmu, grima, from Proto-Germanic *grimmį̄ (“anger, wrath”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrem- (“to resound, thunder, grumble, roar”). Cognate with Middle Dutch grimme, Middle High German grimme f (“anger”), modern German Grimm m.

grim (countable and uncountable, plural grims)

1. (obsolete) Anger, wrath.
2. (obsolete) A specter, ghost, haunting spirit.

• grimful
• grimless

From Old Danish grim (“cruel, grim”), from Old Norse grimmr, from Proto-Germanic *grimmaz.

• IPA^(key): [ɡ̊ʁɛmˀ]

grim (neuter grimt, plural and definite singular attributive grimme)

1. ugly, unsightly
2. nasty

• grimhed
• tudegrim

• “grim” in Den Danske Ordbog
• “grim” in Ordbog over det danske Sprog

From Middle Dutch grim, from Old Dutch grim, from Proto-West Germanic *grimm, from Proto-Germanic *grimmaz. Very uncommon in modern Dutch; recent usage may be influenced by English grim.

• Audio:

  (file)

grim (comparative grimmer, superlative grimst)

1. (uncommon) grim

   Synonym: grimmig (more common)

grim

1. taking

From Old Norse grimmr, from Proto-Germanic *grimmaz.

• IPA^(key): /ɡrɪmː/

grim (masculine and feminine grim, neuter grimt, definite singular and plural grimme, comparative grimmare, superlative grimmast, definite superlative grimmaste)

1. grim, ugly, unsightly

• gram

From Old Norse grímr.

• IPA^(key): /ɡriːm/

grim m (definite singular grimen, indefinite plural grimar, definite plural grimane)

1. (folklore) a kind of wight

• fossegrim

• grime

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

• IPA^(key): /ɡriːm/

grim

1. imperative of grime

• “grim” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

From Proto-West Germanic *grimm, from Proto-Germanic *grimmaz.

grim

1. evil
2. fearsome, terrifying

• Middle Dutch: grim
  • Dutch: grim

• “grim, gram”, in Oudnederlands Woordenboek, 2012

• IPA^(key): /ɡrim/
• Rhymes: -im

grim (superlative grimmest)

1. alternative form of grimm