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• grail
  grail

  noun

  Sometimes Grail any greatly desired and sought-after objective; ultimate ideal or reward.
• Grail
  Grail

  noun

  See Holy Grail

grail

American  

[greyl] / greɪl /

noun

• grails
  plural

1. 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.

2. Often the Grail Holy Grail.

   Weeks pass, and none of the knights return, so King Arthur himself must quest for the Grail.

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Grail British  

/ ɡreɪl /

noun

1. See Holy Grail

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• grails
  plural

Etymology

Origin of 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. ))

Explanation

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."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

grail Grail grails

Experts say the holy grail -- machines capable of independently reacting to the unpredictability of any real-life situation -- is a long way off for any company.

From Barron's ● Aug. 19, 2026

“The holy grail of prediction markets, they shed light on some of the most consequential, decentralized and human processes in the world, where good data is crucial and hard to find.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026

AGI is short for artificial general intelligence, the holy grail in the AI world.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 22, 2026

Nature produces few truly blue plants and minerals, making blue the holy grail of natural food dyes, said Paul Manning, chief executive of dye manufacturer Sensient Technologies.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 18, 2026

I cleared the Scoreboard off my display and opened up my grail diary, which had now grown into a vast mountain of data containing every scrap of information I’d collected since the contest began.

From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline

“This is a major hurdle and overcoming this barrier has been really the Holy Grail in neurology,” he says.

From Barron's ● Jun. 3, 2026

He co-directed The Holy Grail with Gilliam and also co-wrote the series Ripping Yarns with Palin, who he first met at Oxford University.

From BBC ● Apr. 25, 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

For a quarter of a century he had remembered the night with grief, and it had been with him through all the searches for the Grail.

From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White

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

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

It’s a totem that represents Valencia’s dedication to the rare, the special, the hard-to-get — and it’s found a home among the many other grails of the vintage collector.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 22, 2024

Just before sunrise they sprinkle water and meal from beautiful grails; then they all stand with bare heads to watch the rising of the sun.

From Canyons of the Colorado by John Wesley Powell