grim
Americanadjective
-
stern and admitting of no appeasement or compromise.
grim determination; grim necessity.
- Synonyms:
- unyielding, harsh
- Antonyms:
- lenient
-
of a sinister or ghastly character.
a grim joke.
- Antonyms:
- attractive
-
having a harsh, surly, forbidding, or morbid air.
a grim man but a just one; a grim countenance.
- Antonyms:
- gentle
-
fierce, savage, or cruel.
War is a grim business.
-
unpleasant or repellant.
Scrubbing toilets is a grim task that no one likes doing.
adjective
-
stern; resolute
grim determination
-
harsh or formidable in manner or appearance
-
harshly ironic or sinister
grim laughter
-
cruel, severe, or ghastly
a grim accident
-
archaic fierce
a grim warrior
-
informal unpleasant; disagreeable
-
to hold very firmly or resolutely
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of grim
First recorded before 900; Middle English, Old English; cognate with Old Saxon, Old High German grimm, Old Norse grimmr
Explanation
Things that are gloomy, stark, ghastly, and somber are grim. Sunshine, puppies, and rainbows are not grim; zombies, reapers, and mummies are grim. Less scary things like drizzly, foggy days can also be called grim. Two famous uses of the adjective grim are the Grim Reaper and Grimm's Fairy Tales. Mr. Reaper shows up in movies and books wearing a long, hooded black cape and carrying a scythe, or long-handled blade used, in less grim circumstances, for mowing grass and reaping grain: he represents death. The real-life German brothers wrote some bone-chilling tales under their own name, Grimm, meaning "cruel, fierce," which is related to the English word grim. Modern grim things include crime-drama images of dead bodies and characters in horror movies.
Vocabulary lists containing grim
The SAT: Multiple-Meaning Words, List 4
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The New SAT: Multiple-Meaning Words
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More Negative Words to Describe a Person
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Matters looked grim for the Dodgers in the 10th when Evan Phillips found himself in a one-out, bases-loaded jam.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2026
But the trajectory of Scottish Labour's Holyrood results make for grim reading – they've lost MSPs at every election since 1999.
From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026
I’m charmed by LeBron James’s nascent golf career: How someone at the top of one athletic profession has decided to start at the grim bottom of another.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
To avoid these grim scenarios, the researchers called for the world to cut emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases -- and for future heat plans to prioritise vulnerable older people.
From Barron's ● Aug. 17, 2026
The grim blackness of the stones told by what fate the Hall had fallen—by conflagration: but how kindled?
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
Reports David has heard from clients in Cameroon are even grimmer: the IOM has refused to facilitate medical care for some detainees, the lawyer said.
From Barron's ● Jul. 7, 2026
Each morning that Venezuelans wake to the aftermath of the dual earthquakes, it is a little darker, a little grimmer.
From BBC ● Jun. 27, 2026
In earlier decades, a grimmer economic mood usually meant lower inflation-adjusted spending, while shopping picked up when consumers reported more optimism.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
Disney’s latest animated film, “Zootopia 2,” a sequel to its 2016 box-office juggernaut, isn’t exactly an adult political drama, though the stakes certainly feel grimmer.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 25, 2025
Large numbers of malignant tumors are discovered clinically in children under the age of five, but it is an even grimmer fact that significant numbers of such growths are present at or before birth.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
In the grimmest bad taste, the letter gave Haifa until “7 October 2026” to respond.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026
Behind the scenes, his producers eagerly exploited the grimmest episodes of vulnerable people’s lives, never disabusing them of the false assumption that appearing on “Springer” would somehow help them.
From Salon ● Jan. 7, 2025
For now, however, the grimmest of eventualities may have been avoided—all thanks to a mixture of luck and Icelandic proactivity.
From National Geographic ● Dec. 19, 2023
It can feel like that grimmest of media moments, being cornered by a reporter wanting to talk about their old stories.
From BBC ● Nov. 28, 2023
The grimmest examples of germs’ role in history come from the European conquest of the Americas that began with Columbus’s voyage of 1492.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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.
