Word.ws English Dictionary

gravelly

Syllables: grav·el·ly/ˈɡɹævəli/

gravelly adjective: full of, covered with, or similar to gravel or pebbles.

gravelly: full of, covered with, or similar to gravel or pebbles
Image: Stan Zurek, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective

gravelly (comparative more gravelly, superlative most gravelly)

  1. Full of, covered with, or similar to gravel or pebbles.
    • The dung which men make […] is greatly miſlyked, for that by nature it is hoter and burneth the ſeedes ſowne in that earth: ſo that this is not to bee uſed, unleſſe the ground be a barren, grauelly or verie louſe ſand, lacking ſtrength in it, which being on ſuche wiſe, requyreth the more helpe of...1577, Dydymus Mountaine [pseudonym; Thomas Hill], Henry Dethicke [i.e., Henry Dethick], “Of the Kindes of Dung, and which Well Commended for the Dunging of Gardens”, in The Gardeners Labyrinth: […]...
    • This earth, however, is not to be ſuppoſed entirely pure, but is mixed with much ſtony and gravelly matter, from the layers lying immediately beneath it. It generally happens, that the ſoil is fertile in proportion to the quantity that this putrified mold bears to the gravelly mixture; and as the...1791, Oliver Goldsmith, “Of the Internal Structure of the Earth”, in An History of the Earth, and Animated Nature. […], new edition, volume I, London: […] F[rancis] Wingrave, successor to Mr. [John]...
    Synonyms:
    gravelish, gravelous
    Antonyms:
    ungravelly
  2. Of a voice: unpleasantly harsh or rasping.
    • […] currently incarcerated Stinc Team members Ketchy the Great, SaySoTheMac, and Bambino; the devilish and gravelly Almighty Suspect; red-clad Inglewooder and headband connoisseur FreeAckrite; baby-faced Martin Luther King Park loiterer Johnny Rose; […]2019 February 5, Torii MacAdams, “The New Generation of LA Rap Is Changing Everything”, in VICE
  3. Caused by or involving gravel (“kidney stones”).
    Synonyms:
    gravelish, gravelous
  4. (obsolete) Full of or covered with sand; sandy.
    • As the goeing vp a grauelie way in the feete of the aged, ſo a woman ful of tongue to a quiet man.1610, The Second Tome of the Holie Bible, […] (Douay–Rheims Bible), Doway: Laurence Kellam, […], →OCLC, Ecclesiasticus 25:27, page 410

gravelly meaning in Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam and Arabic

gravelly in Hindi

gravelly
कंकड़ीला kaṅkṛīlā
gravelly, pebbly, stony, gritty
कंकरीला kaṅkrīlā, कंकरेला kaṅkrelā

gravelly in Telugu

a gravelly or stony soil
శర్కరీలము śarkarīlamu

gravelly in Malayalam

pebbly, shingly, stony
ചരലുള്ള, ചരൽനിറഞ്ഞ, ശർക്കരാവൃതമായ, ശർക്കരിലമായ, ചരലുവിരിച്ച, ചരൽക്കല്ലു ധാരാളമുള്ള
husky, gruff, throaty
പരുപരുത്ത, ചരലിലിട്ടുരച്ചപോലുള്ള, വരണ്ട, ചിലമ്പിയ, പരുഷം, രൂക്ഷം

gravelly in Arabic

of a voice: unpleasantly harsh or rasping
خَشِن ḵašin

Synonyms of gravelly

Antonyms

Forms of gravelly

comparativemore gravelly
superlativemost gravelly
alternative formgravely

Origin of gravelly

From Middle English gravelli (“covered with gravel or sand; (pathology) containing sand-like matter”), from gravel (“sand; grain of stand; gravel, pebbles; (pathology) sand-like matter in the urine, calculus”) + -lī (suffix forming adjectives). Gravel is derived from Old French gravel, gravele, gravelle (“gravel; (pathology) calculus”) (modern French gravelle (“(pathology) calculus”)), from grave (“coarse sand, gravel; seashore”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʰreh₁w- (“to grind”); modern French grève (“riverbank; shore, strand”)) + -ele (diminutive suffix). The English word is analysable as gravel + -y (suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘having the quality of’).

Words formed from gravelly

Phrases with gravelly

Questions about gravelly

What does gravelly mean?
Gravelly means full of, covered with, or similar to gravel or pebbles.
What is gravelly in Hindi?
Gravelly in Hindi is कंकड़ीला (kaṅkṛīlā), कंकरीला (kaṅkrīlā), कंकरेला (kaṅkrelā). See Gravelly meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is gravelly?
Gravelly is an adjective.
How do you pronounce gravelly?
Gravelly is pronounced /ˈɡɹævəli/ (UK).

Words near gravelly in the dictionary

  1. gravelliness
  2. gravelling
  3. gravellings
  4. gravellish
  5. gravellous
  6. gravelly
  7. Gravelly Beach
  8. Gravelly Hill
  9. gravelometer
  10. gravelometers
  11. gravelous

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gravelly (page history and authors); कंकड़ीला (Hindi) (page history and authors); శర్కరీలము (Telugu) (page history and authors); gravelly (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-gravelly.wav.

Cite this entry: “gravelly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gravelly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.