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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AGI is short for artificial general intelligence, the holy grail in the AI world.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 22, 2026
She recently found the holy grail of shirts for her - the Super Furry Animals-sponsored Cardiff City shirt - a legendary piece of Welsh football and music history.
From BBC ● Jun. 12, 2026
"For more than twenty years, a high-pulse-energy femtosecond laser on chip was widely regarded as a holy grail of integrated photonics," says Kippenberg.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 4, 2026
Its octagonal shape is a riff on AP’s Royal Oak, a holy grail watch among collectors.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
So I devoted an entire section of my grail diary to deciphering the Limerick, line by line.
From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline
Think Lionel Messi finally claiming his personal Holy Grail with Argentina in Doha in 2022.
From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2026
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
Grail says it has sold more than 475,000 Galleri tests since the product launched in 2021.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 2, 2026
However, the company behind the test, Grail, said there were still positive signs in the data that some of the most aggressive cancers could be prevented.
From BBC ● Feb. 20, 2026
What Arthur had feared from the start of the Grail Quest had come to pass.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
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
Bargain Hunt star Richard Madley, from Cardiff, dubbed the text "one of the holy grails".
From BBC ● Jan. 31, 2024
“Where white sharks give birth is one of the holy grails of shark science,” Gauna said in a statement shared by UC Riverside.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 30, 2024
This life-chase after bubbles, this fighting for trifles, this pursuit of false grails, reminds us of the story of that Grecian boy lured to his death by the enchantress.
From The Investment of Influence A Study of Social Sympathy and Service by Hillis, Newell Dwight
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.
