different between gross vs evil

English

Etymology

From Middle English gross (“whole, entire; flagrant, monstrous”), from Old French gros (“big, thick, large, stout”), from Late Latin grossus (“thick in diameter, coarse”), and Medieval Latin grossus (“great, big”), influenced by Old High German gr?z (“big, thick, coarse”), from Proto-Germanic *grautaz (“large, great, thick, coarse grained, unrefined”), from Proto-Indo-European *g?er- (“to rub, to stroke, to grind”). Cognate with French grossier (“gross”). See also French dialectal grôt, groût (“large”) (Berry) and grô (“large”) (Burgundy), Catalan gros (“big”), Dutch groot (“big, large”), German groß (“large”), English great. More at great.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /????s/
• (US) IPA^(key): /??o?s/
• Homophone: Gross
• Rhymes: -??s

Adjective

gross (comparative grosser or more gross, superlative grossest or most gross)

1. (of behaviour considered to be wrong) Highly or conspicuously offensive.

   Synonyms: serious, flagrant, shameful, appalling, egregious.

   • c. 1595, William Shakespeare, Richard II, Act II, Scene 3,^[1]

     Henry IV. My gracious uncle, let me know my fault:

     On what condition stands it and wherein?

     Edmund of Langley. Even in condition of the worst degree,

     In gross rebellion and detested treason:

   • 1682, Aphra Behn, The City-Heiress, London: D. Brown et al., Act IV, Scene 1, p. 40,^[2]

     Your very faults, how gross soere, to me

     Have something pleasing in ’em.

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Dublin: John Smith, Volume 3, Book 18, Chapter 10, p. 336,^[3]

     […] I thank Heaven I have had Time to reflect on my past Life, where though I cannot charge myself with any gross Villainy, yet I can discern Follies and Vices too sufficient to repent and to be ashamed of;

   • 1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 13,^[4]

     […] had his actions been what Wickham represented them, so gross a violation of every thing right could hardly have been concealed from the world;

   • 1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, Chapter 6,^[5]

     […] he has been found guilty, on the clearest evidence, first, of stealing a valuable motor-car; secondly, of driving to the public danger; and, thirdly, of gross impertinence to the rural police.

2. (of an amount) Excluding any deductions; including all associated amounts.

   Synonyms: whole, entire, overall, total, aggregate

   Antonym: net

   • c. 1597, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2, Act II, Scene 1,^[6]

     What is the gross sum that I owe thee?

   • 1878, Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native, Book 6, Chapter 1,^[7]

     For a man of his habits the house and the hundred and twenty pounds a year which he had inherited from his mother were enough to supply all worldly needs. Resources do not depend upon gross amounts, but upon the proportion of spendings to takings.

   • 1937, George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, Penguin, 1962, Part 1, Chapter 3, p. 37,^[8]

     […] please notice that even these wretched earnings are gross earnings. On top of this there are all kinds of stoppages which are deducted from the miner’s wages every week.

3. (sciences, pathology) Seen without a microscope (usually for a tissue or an organ); at a large scale; not detailed.

   Synonym: macroscopic

   Antonym: microscopic

   • 1962, Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Chapter 12, p. 190,^[9]

     We are accustomed to look for the gross and immediate effect and to ignore all else. Unless this appears promptly and in such obvious form that it cannot be ignored, we deny the existence of hazard.

4. (slang, Canada, US) Causing disgust.

   Synonyms: gro, grody, grotty, disgusting, nasty, revolting, yucky

   • 1978, Armistead Maupin, Tales of the City, New York: Harper & Row, 1989, “Ties That Bind,” p. 293,^[10]

     Mary Ann spent her lunch hour at Hastings, picking out just the right tie for Norman. The hint might not be terribly subtle, she decided, but somebody had to do something about that gross, gravy-stained clip-on number.

   • 2002, Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex, New York: Picador, Book 3, p. 306,^[11]

     The next-door neighbor’s cat coughed up a hairball one day and the hair was not the cat’s. “That’s so gross!”

5. Lacking refinement in behaviour or manner; offending a standard of morality.

   Synonyms: coarse, rude, vulgar, obscene, impure

   • 1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, Act I, Scene 1, ^[12]

     Verjuice. She certainly has Talents.

     Lady Sneerwell. But her manner is gross.

   • 1874: Dodsley et al., A Select Collection of Old English Plays

     But man to know God is a difficulty, except by a mean he himself inure, which is to know God’s creatures that be: at first them that be of the grossest nature, and then [...] them that be more pure.
6. (of a product) Lacking refinement; not of high quality.

   Synonyms: coarse, rough, unrefined

   Antonym: fine

   • 1860, John Ruskin, Modern Painters, Volume 5, Part 6, Chapter 10, § 5,^[13]

     The flowers of Rubens are gross and rude […]

   • 1944, Emily Carr, The House of All Sorts, “Lorenzo Was Registered,” ^[14]

     He scorned my wholesome kennel fare, toothing out dainties and leaving the grosser portions to be finished by the other dogs.

7. (of a person) Heavy in proportion to one's height; having a lot of excess flesh.

   Synonyms: great, large, bulky, fat, obese

   • 1925, W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil, London: Heinemann, 1934, Chapter 79,^[15]

     Kitty noticed that her sister’s pregnancy had blunted her features and in her black dress she looked gross and blousy.

   • 2013, Hilary Mantel, ‘Royal Bodies’, London Review of Books, 35.IV:

     He collected a number of injuries that stopped him jousting, and then in middle age became stout, eventually gross.

8. (archaic) Not sensitive in perception or feeling.

   Synonyms: dull, witless

   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Matthew 13.15,^[16]

     For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

   • 1634, John Milton, Comus, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, London: Humphrey Moseley, 1645, p. ,^[17]

     A thousand liveried Angels lacky her [the chaste soul],

     Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,

     And in cleer dream, and solemn vision

     Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear.

9. (now chiefly poetic) Difficult or impossible to see through.

   Synonyms: thick, heavy

   • 1594, Christopher Marlowe, Edward II, London: William Jones,^[18]

     Couragious Lancaster, imbrace thy king,

     And as grosse vapours perish by the sunne,

     Euen so let hatred with thy soueraigne smile,

   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Isaiah 60.2,^[19]

     For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.

   • 1785, William Cowper, The Task, London: J. Johnson, Book 3, p. 116,^[20]

     A pestilent and most corrosive steam,

     Like a gross fog Boeotian, rising fast,

     And fast condensed upon the dewy sash,

     Asks egress;

   • 1870, James Russell Lowell, The Cathedral, Boston: Fields, Osgood, p. 34,^[21]

     […] a larger life

     Upon his own impinging, with swift glimpse

     Of spacious circles luminous with mind,

     To which the ethereal substance of his own

     Seems but gross cloud to make that visible,

     Touched to a sudden glory round the edge.

10. (obsolete) Easy to perceive.

    Synonyms: obvious, clear

    • c. 1598, William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act II, Scene 2,^[22]

      […] though the truth of it stands off as gross

      As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.

Synonyms

• (heavy in proportion to one's height): See also Thesaurus:obese

Derived terms

• grossen
• grossish
• grossly

Translations

Noun

gross (countable and uncountable, plural gross or grosses)

1. Twelve dozen = 144.
2. The total nominal earnings or amount, before taxes, expenses, exceptions or similar are deducted. That which remains after all deductions is called net.
3. The bulk, the mass, the masses.

Translations

Verb

gross (third-person singular simple present grosses, present participle grossing, simple past and past participle grossed)

1. (transitive) To earn money, not including expenses.

   The movie grossed three million on the first weekend.

Derived terms

Related terms

• engross
• grocer, grocery, groceries

Anagrams

• Sgros, Sorgs

German

Adjective

gross (comparative grösser, superlative am grössten)

1. Switzerland and Liechtenstein standard spelling of groß

Declension

Pennsylvania German

Etymology

From Old High German gr?z, from Proto-Germanic *grautaz. Compare German groß, Dutch groot, English great.

Adjective

gross (comparative greesser, superlative greescht)

1. big, large

Derived terms

• Grossdaadi
• Grossmammi

Swedish

Etymology

From French grosse (douzaine), "large (dozen)"

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?r?s/

Noun

gross n

1. a gross, twelve dozen (144)

Declension

Related terms

• grosshandlare

See also

• dussin
• tjog

Anagrams

• sorgs

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: ?-v?l, ?-v?l, IPA^(key): /?i?v?l/, /?i?v?l/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?iv?l/
• Hyphenation: evil
• Rhymes: -i?v?l

Etymology 1

From Middle English yvel, evel, ivel, uvel, from Old English yfel, from Proto-West Germanic *ubil, from Proto-Germanic *ubilaz (compare Saterland Frisian eeuwel, Dutch euvel, Low German övel, German übel), from Proto-Indo-European *h?upélos (compare Old Irish fel (“bad, evil”), from Proto-Celtic *u?elos), diminutive of *h?wep(h?)-, *h?wap- (“treat badly”) (compare Hittite ???????????????? (huwapp-ⁱ, “to mistreat, harass”), ???????????????????? (huwappa-, “evil, badness”)), or alternatively from *upélos (“evil”, literally “going over or beyond (acceptable limits)”), from Proto-Indo-European *upo, *h?ewp- (“down, up, over”).

Adjective

evil (comparative eviller or eviler or more evil, superlative evillest or evilest or most evil)

1. Intending to harm; malevolent.
   • 1866, Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters, Chapter 47,^[1]

     For a good while the Miss Brownings were kept in ignorance of the evil tongues that whispered hard words about Molly.

   • 1916, Zane Grey, The Border Legion, New York: Harper & Bros., Chapter 10, p. 147,^[2]

     He looked at her shapely person with something of the brazen and evil glance that had been so revolting to her in the eyes of those ruffians.

   • 2006, Ng?g? wa Thiong'o, Wizard of the Crow, New York: Pantheon, Book Three, Section II, Chapter 3, p. 351,^[3]

     “Before this, I never had any cause to suspect my wife of any conspiracy.”

     “You mean it never crossed your mind that she might have been told to whisper evil thoughts in your ear at night?”

2. Morally corrupt.
   • c. 1590, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act III, Scene 3,^[4]

     Ah, what a sign it is of evil life,

     When death’s approach is seen so terrible.

   • 1848, Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Chapter 41,^[5]

     I had much trouble at first in breaking him of those evil habits his father had taught him to acquire […]

   • 1967, Chaim Potok, The Chosen, New York: Fawcett Columbine, 2003, Chapter 1, p. 14,^[6]

     To the rabbis who taught in the Jewish parochial schools, baseball was an evil waste of time […]

3. Unpleasant, foul (of odour, taste, mood, weather, etc.).
   • 1660, John Harding (translator), Paracelsus his Archidoxis, London: W.S., Book 7, “Of an Odoriferous Specifick,” p. 100,^[7]

     An Odoriferous Specifick […] is a Matter that takes away Diseases from the Sick, no otherwise then as Civet drives away the stinck of Ordure by its Odour; for you are to observe, That the Specifick doth permix it self with this evil Odour of the Dung; and the stink of the Dung cannot hurt, no[r] abide there […]

   • 1897, H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man, Chapter 18,^[8]

     He awoke in an evil temper […]

   • 1937, Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana, London: Macmillan, Part V, “Mazar-i-Sherif,” p. 282,^[9]

     It was an evil day, sticky and leaden: Oxiana looked as colourless and suburban as India.

   • 1958, Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana, Penguin, 1979, Part Four, Chapter 1, p. 125,^[10]

     He herded them into a small and evil toilet and then through a window.

   • 1993, Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries, Toronto: Random House of Canada, Chapter One, p. 39,^[11]

     Everyone in the tiny, crowded, hot, and evil-smelling kitchen […] has been invited to participate in a moment of history.

4. Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or calamity; unpropitious; calamitous.
   • c. 1590, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 3, Act V, Scene 6,^[12]

     The owl shrieked at thy birth,—an evil sign;

   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Deuteronomy 22.19,^[13]

     […] he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel:

   • 1671, John Milton, Samson Agonistes in Paradise Regain’d, to which is added Samson Agonistes, London: John Starkey, p. 89, lines 438-439,^[14]

     A little stay will bring some notice hither,

     For evil news rides post, while good news baits.

   • 1931, Pearl S. Buck, The Good Earth, New York: Modern Library, 1944, Chapter 15, p. 122,^[15]

     “ […] with bandits and robbers roving over the land in these evil times of famine and war, how can it be said that this one or that stole anything? Hunger makes thief of any man.”

5. (obsolete) Having harmful qualities; not good; worthless or deleterious.

   an evil beast; an evil plant; an evil crop

   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Matthew 7.18,^[16]

     A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.

6. (computing, programming, slang) undesirable; harmful; bad practice

   Global variables are evil; storing processing context in object member variables allows those objects to be reused in a much more flexible way.

Synonyms

• nefarious
• malicious
• malevolent
• wicked
• See also Thesaurus:evil

Antonyms

• good

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

evil (countable and uncountable, plural evils)

1. Moral badness; wickedness; malevolence; the forces or behaviors that are the opposite or enemy of good.

   • The heart of the sons of men is full of evil.

2. Something which impairs the happiness of a being or deprives a being of any good; something which causes suffering of any kind to sentient beings; harm; injury; mischief.
3. (obsolete) A malady or disease; especially in combination, as in king's evil, colt evil.
   • He [Edward the Confessor] was the first that touched for the evil.

Antonyms

• good

Derived terms

Translations

References

Etymology 2

From Middle English yvel, evel, ivel, uvel (“evilly”), from Old English yfele, yfle (“evilly”), a derivative of the noun yfel (“evil”). Often reinterpreted as the noun in the later language (as in "to speak evil").

Adverb

evil (comparative more evil, superlative most evil)

2. (obsolete) wickedly, evilly, iniquitously
3. (obsolete) injuriously, harmfully; in a damaging way.
4. (obsolete) badly, poorly; in an insufficient way.

   It went evil with him.

Usage notes

This adverb was usually used in conjunction with speak.

References

• James A. H. Murray [et al.], editors (1884–1928) , “Evil, adv.”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume III (D–E), London: Clarendon Press, OCLC 15566697, page 350, column 2.

Anagrams

• Levi, Viel, live, veil, vile, vlei

Middle English

Etymology 1

Adjective

evil

1. Alternative form of yvel (“evil”)

Etymology 2

Adverb

evil

1. Alternative form of yvel (“evilly”)