different between gruesome vs grim

English

Etymology

From grue (“to shudder”) +? -some. Compare Danish and Norwegian grusom (“horrible”), German grausam (“cruel”), and Dutch gruwzaam (“gruesome; cruel”).

Adjective

gruesome (comparative gruesomer or more gruesome, superlative gruesomest or most gruesome)

1. Repellently frightful and shocking; horrific or ghastly.
   • 1912: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 6

     In the middle of the floor lay a skeleton, every vestige of flesh gone from the bones to which still clung the mildewed and moldered remnants of what had once been clothing. Upon the bed lay a similar gruesome thing, but smaller, while in a tiny cradle near-by was a third, a wee mite of a skeleton.

Translations

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???m/
• Rhymes: -?m

Etymology 1

From Middle English grim, from Old English grim, grimm, from Proto-West Germanic *grimm, from Proto-Germanic *grimmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *g?rem- (“to resound, thunder, grumble, roar”). Noun sense derives from adjective, from 1620s.

Adjective

grim (comparative grimmer, superlative grimmest)

1. dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding

   Life was grim in many northern industrial towns.
2. rigid and unrelenting

   His grim determination enabled him to win.

3. ghastly or sinister

   A grim castle overshadowed the village.

   • 2012 March 22, Scott Tobias, “The Hunger Games”, in AV 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

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

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

grim (plural grims)

1. (obsolete) specter, ghost, haunting spirit

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.

Etymology 2

From Middle English grim, grym, greme, from Old English *grimu, *grimmu, from Proto-Germanic *grimm?? (“anger, wrath”), from Proto-Indo-European *g?rem- (“to resound, thunder, grumble, roar”). Cognate with Middle Dutch grimme, Middle High German grimme f (“anger”), modern German Grimm m.

Noun

grim (uncountable)

1. (archaic) Anger, wrath.

Derived terms

• grimful
• grimless

Danish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [????m?]

Etymology

From Old Norse grimmr, from Proto-Germanic *grimmaz.

Adjective

grim

1. ugly, unsightly
2. nasty

Inflection

Kalasha

Verb

grim

1. taking

Old English

Alternative forms

• grimm

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *grimm.

Cognate with Old Saxon grim, Old High German grim (German grimm, grimmig), Old Norse grimmr (Danish grim, Swedish grym); and with Greek ??????? (chremízo), Old Church Slavonic ??????? (gr?m?ti) (Russian ???????? (gremét?)), Latvian gremt.

Perhaps related in Old Norse to veiled or hooded, Grim is also an alternate name for Odin, who often went around disguised; compare the hooded appearance of The Grim Reaper.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?rim/

Adjective

grim

1. fierce, severe, terrible, savage, cruel, angry

Declension

Descendants

• Middle English: grim
  • Scots: grim
  • English: grim