gruesome
Americanadjective
-
causing great horror; horribly repugnant; grisly.
the site of a gruesome murder.
-
full of or causing problems; distressing.
a gruesome day at the office.
adjective
Other Word Forms
- gruesomely adverb
- gruesomeness noun
- ungruesome adjective
Etymology
Origin of gruesome
1560–70; obsolete grue to shudder (cognate with German grauen, Dutch gruwen ) + -some 1
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.
At its peak, there were over 6,000 Shakers, joining Ann in rebuking the gruesome, incalculable evils of war and preaching moral generosity.
From Salon
The collapse that followed the war turned multinational empires into nation-states and began the “gruesome death” of Central European civilization.
Marcia finds it “difficult to imagine what her retirement would be like—impossible and rather gruesome to speculate on it.”
That gruesome scenario is precisely what some analysts fear.
From Barron's
The film is partially based in reality; the Hayes character is inspired by Martin Donnelly, whose promising career was cut short in 1990 by a gruesome crash.
From Los Angeles Times
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.
