grim

Adjective

grim (comparative grimmer, superlative grimmest)

1. Dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding.

   Synonyms: bleak, harsh; see also Thesaurus:cheerless, Thesaurus:stern

   Life was grim in many northern industrial towns.

   • 2019 August 30, Jonathan Watts, “Amazon fires show world heading for point of no return, says UN”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC:

     Cristiana Paşca Palmer, the executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, said the destruction of the world’s biggest rainforest was a grim reminder that a fresh approach needed to stabilise the climate and prevent ecosystems from declining to a point of no return, with dire consequences for humanity.

     (Can we archive this URL?)

   • 2022 January 12, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Unhappy start to 2022”, in RAIL, number 948, page 3:

     It's been a grim start to the year.

2. Rigid and unrelenting.

   Synonyms: overwhelming, unbending; see also Thesaurus:hard, Thesaurus:relentless

   His grim determination enabled him to win.

3. Ghastly or sinister.

   Synonyms: forboding, malevolent; see also Thesaurus:evil, Thesaurus:eerie

   A grim castle overshadowed the village.

   • 1933 August (date written), H[oward] P[hillips] Lovecraft, “The Thing on the Doorstep”, in Farnsworth Wright, editor, Weird Tales: A Magazine of the Bizarre and Unusual, volume 29, number 1, Indianapolis, Ind.: Popular Fiction Pub. Co., published January 1937, →OCLC, section 4, page 62:

     There was, I thought, a trace of very profound and very genuine irony in the timbre—not the flashy, meaninglessly jaunty pseudo-irony of the callow "sophisticate," which Derby had habitually affected, but something grim, basic, pervasive and potentially evil.

   • 2012 March 22, Scott Tobias, “The Hunger Games”, in The A.V. Club‎:

     In movie terms, it suggests Paul Verhoeven in Robocop/Starship Troopers mode, an R-rated bloodbath where the grim spectacle of children murdering each other on television is bread-and-circuses for the age of reality TV, enforced by a totalitarian regime to keep the masses at bay.

4. Disgusting; gross.

   Synonyms: foul, loathsome; see also Thesaurus:unpleasant

   – Wanna see the dead rat I found in my fridge?
   – Mate, that is grim!

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter I, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 1:

     Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; […]

5. (obsolete) Fierce, cruel, furious.

   Synonyms: ferocious, raging, savage, violent

Verb

grim (third-person singular simple present grims, present participle grimming, simple past and past participle grimmed)

1. (transitive, rare) To make grim; to give a stern or forbidding aspect to.

Noun

grim (plural grims)

1. (MLE, slang, probably a fashionable word around 2006, now dated) A promiscuous woman.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:promiscuous woman

   • 2006 July 1, “Grim” (track 8), in Wiley (lyrics), Eskiboy: Da 2nd Phaze‎:

     You got a new girl and she looks choong (Choong)
     But you didn't know your girl was a grim
     […]
     Your girl she's a grim, I wouldn't have no grim as my ting

Noun

grim (countable and uncountable, plural grims)

1. (obsolete) Anger, wrath.
2. (obsolete) A specter, ghost, haunting spirit.

Inflection

Declension

Derived terms

Related terms

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡrɪmː/

Adjective

grim (masculine and feminine grim, neuter grimt, definite singular and plural grimme, comparative grimmare, superlative grimmast, definite superlative grimmaste)

1. grim, ugly, unsightly

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡriːm/

Noun

grim m (definite singular grimen, indefinite plural grimar, definite plural grimane)

1. (folklore) a kind of wight

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡriːm/

Verb

grim

1. imperative of grime

Declension