Sometimes Grail any greatly desired and sought-after objective; ultimate ideal or reward.
The film's protagonist is defined by the struggle for his grail, a championship title he failed to win earlier in life.
Often the Grail Holy Grail.
Weeks pass, and none of the knights return, so King Arthur himself must quest for the Grail.
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English graiel, graile, from Anglo-French grahel, grayel, Old French gräel, grel, from Medieval Latin gradālis “platter,” of uncertain origin; perhaps distantly connected to Latin crātēr “mixing bowl” ( see crater ( def. )) or crātis “wickerwork” ( see grate 1 ( def. ))
A grail is some valuable thing you search for or pursue. A golfer's holy grail might be a hole in one. While the object of any serious pursuit is commonly described as a "holy grail," many who use the term might not know its origin. The original Holy Grail is a valuable chalice, cup, or plate — often made of gold — that's sought in medieval and Arthurian legends. The influence of Christianity makes the grail "holy," originally because it was said to have been used at the Last Supper. Grail has a Medieval Latin root, gradalis, "flat dish."
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Even so, sonic adventurers, beginning with Leopold Stokowski in the 1930s, experimented with amplification in an obsessive, seemingly quixotic effort to locate a mythical sonic grail on the Cahuenga Pass.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 16, 2026
First-floor master bedrooms are the holy grail in hilly Pittsburgh.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
AGI is short for artificial general intelligence, the holy grail in the AI world.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 22, 2026
His tenure has delivered the Premier League title six times, as well as the holy grail of a Champions League plus three FA Cups and five Carabao Cups.
From BBC ● May 24, 2026
In my grail diary, I had every single Rush song, album, bootleg, and music video ever made.
From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline
AI might be the Holy Grail of technology buffs, but it’s a poisoned chalice for the job market.
From Barron's ● Apr. 14, 2026
In general, the Grail test’s detection of early stage cancer in its previous studies is low at 20% to 30%, Ramsey notes; it’s 40% for cancers at any stage.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 2, 2026
Grail, a US pharmaceutical company, halved in value after the announcement taking its share price back to levels seen at the end of the summer.
From BBC ● Feb. 20, 2026
Illumina had acquired Grail in August 2021 in an $8 billion deal, then spun it off June 2024 amid heavy pushback from both regulators and activist investors.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 20, 2026
On the day the Hunt began, the day I’d decided to become a gunter, I’d renamed my avatar Parzival, after the knight of Arthurian legend who had found the Holy Grail.
From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline
On the subject of holy grails, there’s the first recording by Lenny Kaye, “Crazy Like A Fox,” released under the nom de guerre Link Cromwell.
From Salon ● Jul. 29, 2026
And, speaking of holy grails: Judy Garland’s ruby slippers from “The Wizard of Oz” fetched $32.5 million.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026
One of the holy grails of trucking is to find a way to reduce the one-third of trips that big rigs are believed to spend hauling empty trailers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 13, 2026
“This has been one of the holy grails of remedying the Korean discount, and there’s at least a 50-50 chance of it passing this year,” he says.
From Barron's ● Dec. 31, 2025
The seraphs would sing to her And from the River Dip her cool grails of radiant Life.
From Song-Surf by Rice, Cale Young
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
