grave
//ɡɹeɪv//
Forms
- Plural
- graves
- Comparative
- graver
- Superlative
- gravest
Definitions
1.An excavation in the earth as a place of burial.
- He had lain in the grave four days.
2.Any place of interment.
3.Any place containing one or more corpses.
4.Death, destruction.
1.Characterised by a dignified sense of seriousness.
2.Low in pitch, tone etc.
- The thicker the cord or string, the more grave is the note or tone.
3.Serious, in a negative sense; important, formidable.
- Israel’s behaviour is doing grave damage to the Palestinian people and to any hope for peace.
- Khrushchev made a grave miscalculation when he failed to appreciate the growing opposition to his power and overestimated the support of his bureaucracy.
Frequency
Overall
Uncommon· #3648
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Uncommon
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
Related words
Word family
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”).