Word.ws English Dictionary

graving

/ˈɡɹeɪvɪŋ/

graving is the present participle and gerund of grave.

Noun

graving (plural gravings)

  1. The act of cleaning a ship's bottom.
  2. (obsolete) An engraving.
    • And the work itself of the bases, was intergraven: and there were gravings between the joinings.1610, Douay–Rheims Bible, 3 Kings vii. 28

Meaning of grave

Verb

grave (third-person singular simple present graves, present participle graving, simple past graved, past participle graved or graven)

  1. (archaic, transitive) To dig.
    • He hath graven and digged up a pit.1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, vij:[16]
  2. (archaic, intransitive) To carve or cut, as letters or figures, on some hard substance; to engrave.
    • Thou shalt take two onyx stones, and grave on them the names of the children of Israel.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 28:9
  3. (archaic, transitive) To carve out or give shape to, by cutting with a chisel; to sculpture.
    • to grave an image
  4. (archaic, intransitive) To impress deeply (on the mind); to fix indelibly.
    • O! may they graven in thy heart remain.1718, Mat[thew] Prior, “Solomon on the Vanity of the World. A Poem in Three Books.”, in Poems on Several Occasions, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], and John Barber […], →OCLC, (please specify the page)
  5. (archaic, transitive) To entomb; to bury.
    • […]And lie full low, graved in the hollow ground.1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to...
  6. (archaic, intransitive) To write or delineate on hard substances, by means of incised lines; to practice engraving.

See all 21 meanings of grave

Forms of graving

pluralgravings

Words formed from graving

Phrases with graving

Questions about graving

What does graving mean?
Graving means the act of cleaning a ship's bottom.
What is graving the present participle and gerund of?
Graving is the present participle and gerund of grave.
What part of speech is graving?
Graving is a noun.
How do you pronounce graving?
Graving is pronounced /ˈɡɹeɪvɪŋ/.
What is the plural of graving?
The plural of graving is gravings.

Words near graving in the dictionary

  1. gravimetry
  2. Gravina
  3. Gravinas
  4. gravinastic
  5. gravinasty
  6. graving
  7. graving dock
  8. graving docks
  9. gravings
  10. graviola
  11. graviperception

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: graving (page history and authors); grave (page history and authors). 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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Cite this entry: “graving.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/graving. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.