Gruesome Meaning
/ˈɡɹuːsəm/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
adjRepellently frightful and shocking; ghastly, horrific.
adjAwful, terrible.
Sentence Examples
Any murder is gruesome but this one was especially heinous.
He set out to make a movie as gruesome as humanly possible.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The crime scene was so ____ that even the police looked away.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The forensic team was called to the scene to investigate the ____ details of the mysterious and violent crime.
Word Origin & History
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”)
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"He taks a ſvvirlie, auld moſs-oak, / For ſome black, grouſome Carlin; […]"
— 1785 (date written), Robert Burns, “Halloween”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. […], 2nd edition, volume I, Edinburgh: […] T[homas] Cadell, […], and William Creech, […], published 1793, →OCLC, stanza XXIII, page 189:
"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."
— 1816, Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter XII, in Tales of My Landlord, […], volume I (The Black Dwarf), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for William Blackwood, […]; London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 259:
"With many a grausome shape unutterable, / Limn'd were the cavernous sepulchral walls; […]"
— 1848, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], “Book V”, in King Arthur. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, stanza XLIX, page 219:
"He has taken a bride / To his gruesome side, / That's as fair as himself is bold: […]"
— 1855, Robert Browning, “A Lovers’ Quarrel”, in Men and Women […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, stanza 5, page 9:
"[T]hey packed him [a dead duck] and sealed him up in brown paper, and put him in the cupboard of an unoccupied study, where he was found in the holidays by the matron, a grewsome body."
— 1857, [Thomas Hughes], “The Bird-Fanciers”, in Tom Brown’s School Days. […], Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, part II, page 303:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
The crime scene was so ____ that even the police looked away.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The forensic team was called to the scene to investigate the ____ details of the mysterious and violent crime.