grail
/ɡɹeɪl/
grail noun: the Holy Grail.
Noun (1)
grail (plural grails)
- The Holy Grail.
- The quest for the Grail is not archeology. It's a race against evil. If it is captured by the Nazis, the armies of darkness will march all over the face of the earth. Do you understand me?1989, 1:06:54 from the start, in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade^(https://archive.org/details/movie-hollywood-720p-sub-indonesia_202209/Indiana+Jones+and+the+Last+Crusade+(1989)+BR/Indiana+Jones+an...
- Something eagerly sought or quested for.
- Becoming an astronaut was his grail.
- How many of them had found the item they dreamt of, their personal grails?2002, Zadie Smith, The Autograph Man, Penguin Books (2003), page 214
Noun (2)
grail (plural grails)
- A book of offices in the Roman Catholic Church; a gradual.
- antiphonals, missals, grails, processionals, etc.1694, John Strype, the Memorials of Thomas Cranmer
Noun (3)
grail (uncountable)
- Small particles of earth; gravel.
- Hereof this gentle knight vnweeting was, / And lying downe vpon the sandie graile, / Drunke of the streame, as cleare as cristall glas [...].1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
Noun (4)
grail (plural grails)
- One of the small feathers of a hawk.
Proper noun capitalized: GRAIL
GRAIL
- Initialism of Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory.
grail meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Bengali
grail in Hindi
- ग्रेल, ग्रेइल
grail in Tamil
- கிரெயில், கிரெய்ல், கிரைல்
grail in Marathi
- ग्रेल, ग्रेइल, ग्रॅइल
grail in Bengali
- গ্রেইল, গ্রেল
More languagesFewer languages
- grail in Telugu
- గ్రెయిల్, గ్రేల్
- grail in Malayalam
- ഗ്രെയിൽ
- grail in Kannada
- ಗ್ರೇಲ್
- grail in Punjabi
- ਗ੍ਰੇਇਲ, ਗ੍ਰੇਲ, ਗ੍ਰੈਲ
- grail in Gujarati
- ગ્રેઇલ, ગ્રેલ, ગ્રેઈલ
- grail in Odia
- ଗ୍ରେଲ୍, ଗ୍ରେଇଲ, ଗ୍ରେଲ
- grail in Nepali
- ग्रेइल, ग्रेल
Examples of grail in a sentence
- Nanotechnology is the holy grail of medicine.
- In fact, I never found the food world's unholy grail on offer anywhere in the land.
- I am beyond my years, but I cannot keep count, as my Abacus runs to computer grail.
Forms of grail
| plural | grails |
|---|
Origin of grail
From Middle English graal, greal, from Old French graal, greal (“cup”), from Medieval Latin gradalis, possibly corrupted over time from Latin crater (“bowl”).
From Middle English grayel, from Old French grael, ultimately from Latin graduale. Doublet of gradual.
Uncertain; perhaps a reduced form of gravel.
Words formed from grail
Phrases with grail
Words that rhyme with grail
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- veil
- pale
- avail
- wale
- whale
- bail
- hail
- yale
- bale
- snail
- travail
- brail
- exhale
- frail
- jail
- prevail
- swale
- vail
- wail
- derail
- dwale
- entail
- flail
- Gail
- gayle
- impale
- kale
- quail
- regale
- spale
- thumbnail
- white whale
- ale
- curtail
- drail
- gale
- inhale
- retail
- shale
- tael
- unveil
- ail
- all hail
- assail
- ayel
- beyond the pale
- braille
- cakes and ale
Questions about grail
- What does grail mean?
- Grail means the Holy Grail.
- What is grail in Hindi?
- Grail in Hindi is ग्रेल, ग्रेइल. See Grail meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is grail?
- Grail can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce grail?
- Grail is pronounced /ɡɹeɪl/.
- What is the plural of grail?
- The plural of grail is grails.
Words near grail in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: grail (page history and authors); GRAIL (page history and authors); grail (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); grail (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); grail (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); grail (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); grail (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); grail (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); grail (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); grail (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); grail (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); grail (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); grail (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-grail.wav.
Cite this entry: “grail.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/grail. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.