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:
October has a fearsome reputation for stock-market tumult, largely due to a handful of notoriously grim selloffs.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 4, 2026
Asked how the coming weeks and months looked she replied: "They look pretty grim at the moment."
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026
Retail sales are a decent barometer of how the typical household is doing and the message is grim: Adjusted for inflation, China’s retail sales fell 0.4% in August from a year earlier.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026
I had grim conversations with many people about the horrors they’d seen after their loved ones fell into the world of medbeds.
From Slate ● Sep. 22, 2026
More security guards arrived, until approximately fifteen men surrounded the former chess champion in a grim, silent circle.
From "Endgame" by Frank Brady
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
That’s a turnaround from their much grimmer forecasts last fall.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 20, 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
When asked about the economy in surveys, people are reporting one of the grimmest economic moods on record.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 14, 2026
But it is the reported conditions in detention which make the grimmest reading in the committee's conclusions, published today.
From BBC ● Nov. 28, 2025
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
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.
