gross
adjective
without deductions; total, as the amount of sales, salary, profit, etc., before taking deductions for expenses, taxes, or the like (opposed to net).
gross
1 American
[grohs]
/ groʊs /
adjective
-
grosser,
comparative
-
grossest
superlative
-
without deductions; total, as the amount of sales, salary, profit, etc., before taking deductions for expenses, taxes, or the like (opposed to net).
gross earnings;
gross sales.
-
a gross scoundrel.
-
flagrant and extreme.
gross injustice.
- Synonyms:
- grievous, heinous, outrageous, absolute, downright
-
indelicate, indecent, obscene, or vulgar.
gross remarks.
- Antonyms:
- decent
-
lacking in refinement, good manners, education, etc.; unrefined.
-
large, big, or bulky.
- Antonyms:
- small, diminutive
-
extremely or excessively fat.
-
of or concerning only the broadest or most general considerations, aspects, etc.
-
Slang. extremely objectionable, offensive, or disgusting.
He wore an outfit that was absolutely gross.
-
gross vegetation;
gross fog;
gross vapors.
noun
-
gross,
plural
-
grosses
plural
-
a group of 12 dozen, or 144, things. gro.
-
total income from sales, salary, etc., before any deductions (opposed to net).
-
Obsolete. the main body, bulk, or mass.
verb (used with object)
-
grosses,
present (3rd person singular)
-
grossed,
past participle, past
-
grossing
present participle
verb phrase
Gross
2
American
[grohs]
/ groʊs /
noun
gross
British
/ ɡrəʊs /
adjective
-
repellently or excessively fat or bulky
-
with no deductions for expenses, tax, etc; total Compare net 2
gross sales
gross income
-
(of personal qualities, tastes, etc) conspicuously coarse or vulgar
-
obviously or exceptionally culpable or wrong; flagrant
gross inefficiency
-
lacking in perception, sensitivity, or discrimination
gross judgments
-
(esp of vegetation) dense; thick; luxuriant
-
obsolete coarse in texture or quality
-
rare rude; uneducated; ignorant
interjection
noun
-
a unit of quantity equal to 12 dozen
-
-
the entire amount
-
the great majority
-
verb
gross
Cultural
Usage
What’s the difference between gross and net? In the context of finance and accounting, gross refers to the total amount before any deductions, while net refers to the final amount that remains after deductions have been made. Of course, gross and net are common words with many other meanings, but these senses of gross and net are used in the context of measuring something (especially money) that has been accumulated—profit, income, earnings, gains, etc. The amount described or referred to as gross is everything that has been taken in, not accounting for things like debts, deductions, and expenses. The amount described or referred to as net is how much you have left after you’ve subtracted anything that doesn’t count toward profit, like debts and expenses. In other words, net is basically gross minus whatever you owe or have spent. For this reason, net is always lower than gross. For example, let’s say you decide to sell cupcakes at a bake sale. You spend $15 on ingredients, and you have to rent a table for $5, which equals $20 in expenses. Good news, you make $50 in cupcake sales. Your gross is $50. Minus the $20 in expenses, your net is $30. You could say you grossed $50 and netted $30. To remember the difference, remember that a net sifts whatever goes into it so that only some remains. Here’s an example of gross and net used correctly in the same sentence. Example: For this quarter, gross income was $2 million, but $1. 25 million in expenses and outstanding debts resulted in a net of only $750,000. Want to learn more? Read the full breakdown of the difference between gross and net.
Synonym Usage
See flagrant.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
-
grossnessnoun
-
overgrossnessnoun
-
outgrossverb (used with object)
-
overgrossadjective
-
ungrossadjective
-
grosslyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Adjectives
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
grosssimple
-
grossessimple
-
have grossedperfect
-
has grossedperfect
-
am grossingprogressive
-
are grossingprogressive
-
is grossingprogressive
-
have been grossingperfect progressive
-
has been grossingperfect progressive
Past
-
grossedsimple
-
had grossedperfect
-
was grossingprogressive
-
were grossingprogressive
-
had been grossingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of gross
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Old French gros “large” (as noun, grosse “twelve dozen”), from Late Latin gross(us) “thick, coarse”
Explanation
Get ready, because gross has a few different meanings. When something is gross, it's disgusting. The noun, a gross, is the complete amount (before expenses), and the verb "to gross" is to bring in money. Two things will tell you which meaning is the right one with a word like gross: the part of speech and the context. If you're talking about awful, sickening, vile things, you're looking at the adjective gross. If you're referring to, say, how much money a movie made, that's the noun gross; but remember, the gross is how much the movie made in total, not how much it cleared in profit after expenses (the net). As a noun, gross can also be a unit of measurement: if your teacher orders a gross of pencils, he'll get a shipment of 12 dozen. The verb to gross means to pull in money, as in: the bake sale grossed 30 dollar.
Vocabulary lists containing gross
More Negative Words to Describe a Person
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Economics
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"Principles of Business," Vocabulary from Chapter 2
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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:
The “labor share” of gross domestic product fell in the second quarter to just 52.8%, the department reported Thursday.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 4, 2026
The company has five million paying members and reported gross margins of 89% on memberships for the nine-month period.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 3, 2026
Instead, the country’s gross domestic product fell just 1.4% that first year, then recovered at a torrid pace.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026
The cost of running AI workloads did show up in adjusted product gross margin, which came in at 74.7% for the quarter, down from 75.8% a year ago.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 2, 2026
The gross brown water inside the bowl made Nathan nauseous.
From "Healer of the Water Monster" by Brian Young
Pascal Gross: The German delivered an excellent cross to create Yalcouye's first opportunity of the game, and had the last word with his late goal.
From BBC ● Aug. 30, 2026
Gross domestic product in Canada could get trimmed by 0.3 percentage points, Oxford said.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 25, 2026
Her voice, a birdlike soprano with an animated trill, hadn’t changed much from her youth: “I sound like a little girl singing all these Lord-awful songs,” she told “Fresh Air’s” Terry Gross in 2001.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 25, 2026
"This is a solid opening for the 6th episode of a horror series," wrote David Gross in the FranchiseRe movie industry newsletter.
From Barron's ● Aug. 23, 2026
"Gross," he moaned when he opened it and actually saw the chunks of slippery purple meat.
From "Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher" by Bruce Coville
Today it is mostly flourishing: Broadway is among the country’s major tourist attractions, even if the mighty grosses logged by the big hits disguise the medium’s precarious finances.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 30, 2026
I worked a very early shift at Sony Pictures, pumping out film grosses seven days a week, and he managed a co-owned restaurant in Hollywood with a shift closing late at night.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 13, 2025
It really needed a boost, because its grosses have been anemic — last week it grossed $288,102, which is unsustainably low for a Broadway musical.
From New York Times ● May 2, 2024
"A sweeping story about the ethical dilemma of nuclear weapons grosses $1bn?" he joked of the film, which admittedly hadn't sounded punter-friendly on paper.
From BBC ● Jan. 13, 2024
The thought of the false teeth currently chillin’ in their purple glitter container inside G’ma’s purse almost grosses Scoob out as much as the oysters.
From "Clean Getaway" by Nic Stone
It was a movie, the biggest Hollywood grosser of the year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 11, 2026
In that vacuum, normal people were tuning out altogether, because the election seemed grosser and sadder by the minute.
From Salon ● Aug. 9, 2024
Tom Cruise always has the answer, though: the top grosser of the day was Top Gun: Maverick, which added about $6 million to its box office haul.
From The Verge ● Sep. 5, 2022
The theatrical exclusive “West Side Story” is the second-highest domestic grosser of the nominees with only $37 million.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 8, 2022
Tripping and lifting out Olakunde and the sack of muskets, we floundered through the water to the grass, captives again of the grosser elements.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
Even though Coleman sometimes showcases customers’ grossest problems, he’s never heard from a client who was unhappy with a post.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026
Judge Patrick Lynch KC told the former teacher that he had violated the trust placed in him "in the grossest manner".
From BBC ● Apr. 28, 2026
His book, "Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy," has become an Amazon bestseller because he's promoted by the grossest people on the internet.
From Salon ● Oct. 9, 2023
HBO Max just launched its rebrand in just about the grossest way possible, Sam Adams writes.
From Slate ● May 25, 2023
Probably the grossest, coolest thing I ever saw in my whole life.
From Absolutely Almost by Lisa Graff
The film grossed more than $9 million and Trump screened it approvingly at Mar-a-Lago.
From Salon ● Aug. 27, 2026
The movie grossed nearly $180m worldwide at the box office at the time.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
His movies have grossed roughly $5 billion worldwide.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026
That picture grossed $357 million in its debut from the U.S. and Canada and went on to achieve a global gross of $2.8 billion.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 2, 2026
I’ll let the skin form on top of the hot chocolate and be so grossed out by it, I can’t drink any more.
From "Wintergirls" by Laurie Halse Anderson
It is now Sony Picture's highest-ever grossing film, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
From Barron's ● Aug. 16, 2026
California and its co-plaintiffs said “anticipated top grossing theatrical films” aim to earn at least $100 million and have higher marketing budgets and involve well-known writers, directors or actors.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 14, 2026
Disney’s live-action “Mufasa: The Lion King” opened in 2024 to a middling $35 million, but ended up grossing more than $722 million globally through the holiday season.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2026
But “Stronger” returned dismal numbers at the box office, grossing just $7.7 million on a $30 million budget.
From Salon ● May 27, 2026
I figured she was grossing me out as revenge for not eating her chicken dinner.
From "Three Little Words: A Memoir" by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
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.
