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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

grave.

An excavation in the earth as a place of burial.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ɡɹeɪv//ɡɹɑːv/
  1. An excavation in the earth as a place of burial.

    countable · uncountable
  2. Any place of interment.

    broadly · countable · uncountable
  3. Any place containing one or more corpses.

    countable · uncountable
  4. Death, destruction.

    broadly · uncountable
  5. Deceased people; the dead.

    broadly · uncountable
Where this word comes from

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”). Cognate with West Frisian grêf (“grave”), Dutch graf (“grave”), Low German Graf (“a grave”), Graff, German Grab (“grave”), Danish, Swedish and Norwegian grav (“grave”), Icelandic gröf (“grave”). Related to groove.

verb/ɡɹeɪv//ɡɹɑːv/
  1. To dig.

    archaic · transitive
  2. To carve or cut, as letters or figures, on some hard substance; to engrave.

    archaic · intransitive
  3. To carve out or give shape to, by cutting with a chisel; to sculpture.

    archaic · transitive
    to grave an image
  4. To impress deeply (on the mind); to fix indelibly.

    archaic · intransitive
  5. To entomb; to bury.

    archaic · transitive
  6. To write or delineate on hard substances, by means of incised lines; to practice engraving.

    archaic · intransitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English graven, from Old English grafan (“to dig, dig up, grave, engrave, carve, chisel”), from Proto-Germanic *grabaną (“to dig”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrebʰ- (“to dig, scratch, scrape”). Cognate with Dutch graven (“to dig”), German graben (“to dig”), Danish grave (“to dig”), Swedish gräva (“to dig”), Icelandic grafa (“to dig”).

adj/ɡɹeɪv//ɡɹɑːv/
  1. Characterised by a dignified sense of seriousness.

  2. Low in pitch, tone etc.

  3. Serious, in a negative sense; important, formidable.

  4. Dull, produced in the middle or back of the mouth. (See Grave and acute on Wikipedia.Wikipedia )

    dated
  5. Influential, important; authoritative.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *gʷreh₂- Proto-Indo-European *-us Proto-Indo-European *gʷréh₂us Proto-Italic *gʷraus Latin gravis Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Indo-European *-h₂tiinflu. Proto-Italic *-ājō Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Medieval Latin gravō Medieval Latin gravader. Old French grave Middle French gravebor. English grave From Middle French grave, a learned borrowing from Latin gravis (“heavy, important”). Compare Old French greve (“terrible, dreadful”). Doublet of grief.

noun/ɡɹeɪv//ɡɹɑːv/
  1. A grave accent, the diacritic mark `.

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *gʷreh₂- Proto-Indo-European *-us Proto-Indo-European *gʷréh₂us Proto-Italic *gʷraus Latin gravis Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Indo-European *-h₂tiinflu. Proto-Italic *-ājō Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Medieval Latin gravō Medieval Latin gravader. Old French grave Middle French gravebor. English grave From Middle French grave, a learned borrowing from Latin gravis (“heavy, important”). Compare Old French greve (“terrible, dreadful”). Doublet of grief.

noun/ɡɹeɪv//ɡɹɑːv/
  1. A count, prefect, or person holding office.

    historical
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Middle English greyve. Doublet of graaf (borrowed from the Dutch cognate graaf (“count, earl”)) and graf (borrowed from the German cognate Graf (“count, earl”)).

verb/ɡɹeɪv//ɡɹɑːv/
  1. To clean, as a vessel's bottom, of barnacles, grass, etc., and pay it over with pitch — so called because graves or greaves were formerly used for this purpose.

    obsolete · transitive
noun/ɡɹeɪv//ɡɹɑːv/
  1. A kilogram.

    obsolete
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Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.