grave
grave Lexical Profile
grave Game Scores & Validity
• adjective
Giving cause for alarm; serious, critical, or of great consequence.
"The committee expressed grave concern over the rapid depletion of local groundwater reserves."
Solemn, dignified, and gloomy in manner or appearance; not cheerful.
"The judge maintained a grave expression throughout the reading of the verdict."
• noun
An excavation in the earth for the burial of a corpse; a place of interment.
"Archaeologists uncovered an ancient grave containing bronze tools and pottery."
A diacritical mark (`) placed over a vowel in various languages to indicate pitch, stress, or a distinct vowel quality.
"In French orthography, the grave is used to distinguish certain homophones and alter vowel pronunciation."
• verb
To carve, engrave, or sculpt into a hard surface; figuratively, to fix indelibly in the mind or memory (literary or archaic).
"The artisan carefully graved the royal seal into the stone tablet."
To clean and coat the hull of a wooden ship by burning off accumulated barnacles and applying pitch (nautical).
"The crew brought the vessel into dry dock to grave the hull before the winter voyage."
Word Nuance & Usage
'Grave' is a true homonym uniting two unrelated etymologies: the noun and verb meaning burial or carving are always pronounced /ɡreɪv/, whereas the noun and adjective referring to the diacritical mark (`) may be pronounced either /ɡreɪv/ or /ɡrɑːv/.
• Rhymes for grave
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
The burial noun and carving verb derive from Old English 'græf' (ditch, trench, cave) and 'grafan' (to dig or carve), from a Proto-Germanic root. The adjective meaning 'serious' was borrowed independently in the 16th century from Middle French and Latin 'gravis' (heavy, weighty).
Usage Trend
Historical frequency of usage in published text.