Word.ws English Dictionary

grieve

UK/ɡɹiːv/

grieve verb: to cause sorrow or distress to.

Verb

grieve (third-person singular simple present grieves, present participle grieving, simple past and past participle grieved)

  1. (transitive) To cause sorrow or distress to.
    • Thy maidens griev'd themselves at my concern.1782, William Cowper, “On the Receipt of my Mother’s Picture”, in Poems, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC
  2. (transitive) To feel very sad about; to mourn; to sorrow for.
    • to grieve one's fate
  3. (intransitive) To experience grief.
  4. (archaic, transitive) To harm.
    Synonyms:
    injure, wound, abuse, annoy, bewound, damage, damnify, dere, do damage to, do for
  5. (transitive) To submit or file a grievance (about).
    • Even if the executive director rules against the employee on appeal, the employee can still grieve the termination to the superintendent followed by an appeal to the … Board of Trustees.2009, D'Amico, Rob (editor), Texas Teacher, published by Texas AFT (affiliate of American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO); "Austin classified employees gain due process rights", April 2009, p14

Noun

grieve (plural grieves)

  1. (obsolete) A governor of a town or province.
  2. (Scotland) A manager or steward, e.g. of a farm.
    • [A prince] is nothing but a servant, overseer, or grieve, and not the head, which is a title belonging only to Christ.1559-1566, John Knox, History of the Reformation in Scotland
    • [T]heir children were horsewhipped by the grieve when found trespassing; […]1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], chapter VII, in Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and...

Proper noun capitalized: Grieve

Grieve (plural Grieves)

  1. A surname.

grieve meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

grieve in Hindi

to grieve, distress, pain
कलपाना kalpānā
to grieve
कुढ़ना kuṛhnā, कराहना karāhnā

grieve in Tamil

to grieve, sorrow, lament
துயர் tuyar
to grieve, lament, weep, be sad
வருந்து varuntu

grieve in Urdu

to grieve
کراہنا karāhnā

grieve in Bengali

দুঃখ দেওয়া, পাওয়া, শোক করা
More languagesFewer languages
grieve in Telugu
శోకించు śōkiñcu
grieve in Malayalam
ദുഃഖിപ്പിക്കുക, വേദനിപ്പിക്കുക, പീഡിപ്പിക്കുക, ശല്യപ്പെടുത്തുക
grieve in Kannada
ಅಂಗಲು aṅgalu
grieve in Punjabi
ਝੁਰਨਾ jhurnā
grieve in Sanskrit
शोचति śocati
grieve in Nepali
शोक गर्न
grieve in Vietnamese
đau lòng

Examples of grieve in a sentence

  • She was at a loss for words when she saw the number of people who had come to grieve for her husband.
  • The grieving mother who lost her daughter in an accident told the drunk driver "It's too late for sorry!" after he tried to apologize.
  • Let us be, to grieve, rage, weep; say the mourners' kaddish.

All 30 example sentences with grieve

Synonyms of grieve

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of grieve

Forms of grieve

Verb
third-person singular presentgrieves
present participlegrieving
past participlegrieved
pastgrieved
Noun
pluralgrieves
Proper noun
pluralGrieves

Past tense of grieve: grieved

Origin of grieve

From Middle English greven, from Old French grever (“to burden”), from Latin gravō, gravāre, from adjective gravis (“grave”). For the meaning development compare Russian тяготи́ть (tjagotítʹ, “to be a burden (on), to oppress”), Russian тужи́ть (tužítʹ, “to experience grief”), related to тяжёлый (tjažólyj, “heavy, grave”), тя́жкий (tjážkij).

From Middle English greve, greyve, grave, grafe, from Old Norse greifi, from Middle Low German grēve, grâve, related to Old English grœfa, groefa, variants of Old English ġerēfa (“steward, reeve”). More at reeve.

English surname, from Middle English greyve (“steward, bailiff, principal officer”). Compare Reeve, Sheriff. Also sometimes a variant of Grave.

Words formed from grieve

Phrases with grieve

Words that rhyme with grieve

45 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about grieve

What does grieve mean?
Grieve means to cause sorrow or distress to.
What is grieve in Hindi?
Grieve in Hindi is कलपाना (kalpānā), कुढ़ना (kuṛhnā), कराहना (karāhnā). See Grieve meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is grieve?
Grieve can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce grieve?
Grieve is pronounced /ɡɹiːv/ (UK).
What is the past tense of grieve?
The past tense of grieve is grieved.

Words near grieve in the dictionary

  1. grievands
  2. grievant
  3. grievants
  4. grievaunce
  5. grievaunces
  6. grieve
  7. grieve-some
  8. grieved
  9. grievedly
  10. grieven
  11. grievened

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: grieve (page history and authors); Grieve (page history and authors); कराहना (Hindi) (page history and authors); துயர் (Tamil) (page history and authors); کراہنا (Urdu) (page history and authors); grieve (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); grieve (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ಅಂಗಲು (Kannada) (page history and authors); ਝੁਰਨਾ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); grieve (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-grieve.ogg.

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