grave

¹ American  

[greyv] / greɪv /

noun

1. an excavation made in the earth in which to bury a dead body.

2. any place of interment; a tomb or sepulcher.

   a watery grave.

3. any place that becomes the receptacle of what is dead, lost, or past.

   the grave of unfulfilled ambitions.

4. death.

   O grave, where is thy victory?

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idioms

1. make (one) turn / turn over in one's grave, to do something to which a specified dead person would have objected bitterly.

   This production of Hamlet is enough to make Shakespeare turn in his grave.

2. have one foot in the grave, to be so frail, sick, or old that death appears imminent.

   It was a shock to see my uncle looking as if he had one foot in the grave.

grave ² American  

[greyv, grahv] / greɪv, grɑv /

adjective

graver, comparative gravest superlative

1. serious or solemn; sober.

   a grave person;

   grave thoughts.

   Synonyms:

   thoughtful, staid, sedate

   Antonyms:

   carefree, frivolous

2. weighty, momentous, or important.

   grave responsibilities.

3. threatening a seriously bad outcome or involving serious issues; critical.

   a grave situation;

   a grave illness.

4. Phonetics.

   1. unaccented.

   2. spoken on a low or falling pitch.

   3. Orthography. noting or having a particular diacritic (`) indicating originally a comparatively low pitch (as in Frenchpère ), distinct syllabic value (as in Englishbelovèd ), etc. (opposed to acute).

5. (of colors) dull; somber.

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noun

1. Phonetics, Orthography. the grave accent.

grave ³ American  

[greyv] / greɪv /

verb (used with object)

graved, graven, graved, graving

1. to carve, sculpt, or engrave.

2. to impress deeply.

   graven on the mind.

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grave ⁴ American  

[greyv] / greɪv /

verb (used with object)

Nautical.

graved, graving

1. to clean and apply a protective composition of tar to (the bottom of a ship).

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grave ⁵ American  

[grah-vey, grah-ve] / ˈgrɑ veɪ, ˈgrɑ vɛ /

adjective

graver, comparative gravest superlative

1. slow; solemn.

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adverb

1. slowly; solemnly.

grave ¹ British  

/ ɡreɪv /

adjective

1. serious and solemn

   a grave look

2. full of or suggesting danger

   a grave situation

3. important; crucial

   grave matters of state

4. (of colours) sober or dull

5. phonetics

   1. (of a vowel or syllable in some languages with a pitch accent, such as ancient Greek) spoken on a lower or falling musical pitch relative to neighbouring syllables or vowels

   2. of or relating to an accent (`) over vowels, denoting a pronunciation with lower or falling musical pitch (as in ancient Greek), with certain special quality (as in French), or in a manner that gives the vowel status as a syllable nucleus not usually possessed by it in that position (as in English agèd ) Compare acute circumflex

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noun

1. a grave accent

grave ² British  

/ ɡreɪv /

noun

1. a place for the burial of a corpse, esp beneath the ground and usually marked by a tombstone

2. something resembling a grave or resting place

   the ship went to its grave

3. a poetic term for death

4. informal to be near death

5. to do something that would have shocked or distressed (someone now dead)

   many modern dictionaries would make Dr Johnson turn in his grave

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grave ³ British  

/ ɡreɪv /

verb

1. to cut, carve, sculpt, or engrave

2. to fix firmly in the mind

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grave ⁴ British  

/ ɡreɪv /

verb

1. (tr) nautical to clean and apply a coating of pitch to (the bottom of a vessel)

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grave ⁵ British  

/ ˈɡrɑːvɪ /

adjective

1. music to be performed in a solemn manner

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grave More Idioms  

1. see dig one's own grave; from the cradle to the grave; one foot in the grave; turn in one's grave.

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Synonym Usage

Grave, sober, solemn refer to the condition of being serious in demeanor or appearance. Grave indicates a weighty dignity, or the character, aspect, demeanor, speech, etc., of one conscious of heavy responsibilities or cares, or of threatening possibilities: The jury looked grave while studying the evidence. Sober (from its original sense of freedom from intoxication, and hence temperate, staid, sedate) has come to indicate absence of levity, gaiety, or mirth, and thus to be akin to serious and grave: as sober as a judge; a sober expression on one's face. Solemn implies an impressive seriousness and deep earnestness: The minister's voice was solemn as he announced the text.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• graveness
  noun
• graver
  noun
• graveless
  adjective
• gravelike
  adjective
• gravely
  adverb
• graveward
  adverb
• gravewards
  adverb
• ungravely
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Adjectives

• graver
  comparative
• gravest
  superlative

Etymology

Origin of grave¹

First recorded before 1000; Middle English; Old English græf; cognate with German Grab; see grave ³

Origin of grave²

First recorded in 1535–45; from Middle French, from Latin gravis; akin to Greek barýs “heavy”

Origin of grave³

First recorded before 1000; Middle English graven, Old English grafan; cognate with German graben

Origin of grave⁴

First recorded in 1425–75; late Middle English; perhaps akin to gravel

Origin of grave⁵

First recorded in 1575–85; from Italian grave, from Latin gravis “heavy”; see grave ²

Explanation

A grave is the place where a body is buried. Usually, a grave is dug in the ground, and a stone with information about the deceased person marks its location. Grave is used as an adjective, too. It can describe something serious, or of great importance. If a situation is grave, it is serious and sad, like when a loved one is very sick. Grave can also refer to something that causes fear or anxiety. If you are in grave danger, your personal safety is threatened. If you have a grave personality, you are solemn and dignified and don't joke around very much.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

grave graver gravest graved graven graving

Every criminal statute targets some category of conduct that causes grave harm in the aggregate.

From Slate ● Jul. 28, 2026

Vikas Singh, president of the SCBA, told the BBC that threats against a judge were a grave issue as the judiciary was interlinked with the fundamentals of democracy.

From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2026

The report is the fruit of the Moscow Mechanism, a process triggered by the OSCE's 41 states on May 14 to allow independent experts to investigate grave human rights abuses in the conflict.

From Barron's ● Jul. 9, 2026

“Your grave mistake is unforgivable,” he said, addressing the Iranian diplomats in a video on his YouTube account.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2026

I’d be worried into an early grave for trying to keep him out of his.

From "Secrets at Sea" by Richard Peck

So far, the war in Iran has put them in even graver danger.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 23, 2026

Takaichi's challenges are graver: Japan is older, its economy is still growing too slowly and the world is in a very different place.

From BBC ● Feb. 9, 2026

In fact, with the world becoming more chaotic and unstable, the threat they pose, the film argues, is graver than ever.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2025

Before I was ever a graver myself, one of my now-comrades in Texas wrote a memorial to a man on Find a Grave.

From Slate ● Oct. 24, 2024

“Don’t you dare speak to Draco like—” said Narcissa furiously, but Bellatrix screamed, “Be quiet! The situation is graver than you can possibly imagine, Cissy! We have a very serious problem!”

From "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling

Mr. Rubio states that at its inception the ICC was proposed as a backstop against the gravest crimes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026

Established in 2002, the ICC prosecutes individuals accused of the gravest atrocities, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

From Barron's ● Jul. 13, 2026

From the gravest to the most basic, a set of choices will confront Andy Burnham as soon as he walks through the Downing Street door.

From BBC ● Jul. 4, 2026

The conference, which brought together leaders from around Africa and the Caribbean, comes after the United Nations adopted a historic resolution that declared the transatlantic slave trade "the gravest crime against humanity".

From Barron's ● Jun. 18, 2026

Because I had rid her heart of its gravest malady.

From "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini

When they pull up to the empty lot, she isn’t sure it’s right—the dirt graved in white and the scrappy weeds glazed to silver.

From The New Yorker ● Mar. 20, 2017

Those words of Czechoslovakia's national hero, Jan Hus, are en graved on the base of his statue in Prague.

From Time Magazine Archive

All are equal there; and the memory that he left, and the characters that he graved on the rock, while they move our pity, stir our wonder too.

From Essays by Benson, Arthur Christopher

His own house Breidablik, on whose columns Balder graved The enchantments that recall the dead to life.

From Myths of the Norsemen From the Eddas and Sagas by Guerber, H. A. (Hélène Adeline)

Graving, grāv′ing, n. an act of graving or cutting out on hard substances: that which is graved or cut out: carved-work: act of cleaning a ship's bottom.—n.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 2 of 4: E-M) by Various

The difference here is that Jackson’s intended audience—which, again, includes the vast majority of Americans who do not keep a graven image of Antonin Scalia in their homes—does not take assertions like this seriously anymore.

From Slate ● Oct. 4, 2024

Those included condemnation of just the sort of graven imagery his son would later master for the Church of Rome and its royal cohorts in Habsburg Spain.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 6, 2021

Some passed him like he was one of the graven images carved into the columns.

From The Verge ● Feb. 4, 2019

Here are some Jefferson quotes that visitors will not find on his memorial, a Roman pantheon-style temple to liberty where the Sage of Monticello's graven image keeps vigil over the Tidal Basin in Washington DC.

From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2017

Straight on the panicked horse galloped, past the milestone lodged in the earth at the roadside, heedless of the letters graven in the stone: “Redwall Abbey, fifteen miles.”

From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques

It’s what sucked me into graving, despite my startling first encounter with Find a Grave.

From Slate ● Oct. 24, 2024

The work of graving will never be finished.

From Slate ● Oct. 24, 2024

This graving free-for-all has caused some controversy over the years.

From Slate ● Oct. 24, 2024

"A true letter," she wrote to Clive Bell in 1907, "should be as a film of wax pressed close to the graving in the mind."

From Time Magazine Archive

Through that window he could watch his Western Star graving in the graving dock.

From "Johnny Tremain" by Esther Hoskins Forbes