Question 1 · Quick check
gruesome
CEFRC1
/ˈɡɹuːsəm/
adjective
Türkçe translations
Translating…
In plain English
- 01
adjective
Extremely unpleasant because it involves death, injury, or blood.
- 02
adjective
Extra detailAwful, terrible.
Examples
Any murder is gruesome but this one was especially heinous.
He set out to make a movie as gruesome as humanly possible.
At a glance
Sits at C1 on the CEFR scale
- Senses
- 4
- Parts of speech
- 1
- Citations
- 5
- Synonyms
- 5
Also pronounced
- /ˈɡɹuːsm̩/
- /ˈɡɹusəm/
Deep Dive
adjective
Extra meaningsOf a person: filled with fear; afraid, fearful.
Repellently frightful and shocking; ghastly, horrific.
More examples
In contextThe team was so unprepared that the way it played was just gruesome.
He taks a ſvvirlie, auld moſs-oak, / For ſome black, grouſome Carlin; […]
There's a wheen German horse doun at Glasgow yonder; they ca' their commander Wittybody, or some sic name, though he's as grave and grewsome an auld Dutchman as e'er I saw.
Related
Quick test
Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.
Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.
Nearby
Origin
adjective
From grue (“(archaic except Northern England, Scotland) to be frightened; to shudder with fear”) + -some (suffix meaning ‘characterized by some specific condition or quality, usually to a considerable degree’ forming adjectives and nouns), probably popularized by the Scottish novelist and poet Walter Scott (1771–1832): see, for example, the 1816 quotation. cognates * Danish grusom (“cruel; horrible”) * Middle Dutch grousaem, grusaem (modern Dutch gruwzaam (“cruel; gruesome”)) * Middle High German grûsam, grûwesam (modern German grausam (“cruel”)) * Norwegian Bokmål grusom (“cruel; horrible”)