grim

CEFRB2

/ɡɹɪm/

adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
adjective
Serious, unpleasant, or lacking hope.
02
adjective
Extra detail
Ghastly or sinister.

Examples

From the doctor's grim expression, it was clear he had somber news for the patient.
Marcia looked grim when I told her the story.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses: 5
Parts of speech: 1
Citations: 5
Synonyms: 5

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meanings

Rigid and unrelenting.
Dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding.
Disgusting; gross.

More examples

In context

His grim determination enabled him to win.
Life was grim in many northern industrial towns.
A grim castle overshadowed the village.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

After hearing the bad news, his face turned blank and he did not smile.

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Nearby

Citations

The word in print, with each source given in full.

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).
2017 May 26, Loren Balhorn, “The Lost History of Antifa”, in Jacobin Magazine
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.
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
It's been a grim start to the year.
2022 January 12, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Unhappy start to 2022”, in RAIL, number 948, page 3
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.
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
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.
2012 March 22, Scott Tobias, “The Hunger Games”, in The A.V. Club

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Origin

adjective

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”).

Deep Dive

adjective

More examples

Related

Quick test

After hearing the bad news, his face turned blank— and he did not smile.

Nearby

Origin

adjective

After hearing the bad news, his face turned blank and he did not smile.