grim
/ɡɹɪm/UK/ɡɹɪm/
grim adjective: dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding.
Adjective
grim (comparative grimmer, superlative grimmest)
- Dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding.
- Life was grim in many northern industrial towns.
- Developments were markedly different in the Soviet zone, but ultimately ended in perhaps an even grimmer dead end: that of SED leader Walter Ulbricht’s thoroughly Stalinized German Democratic Republic (GDR).2017 May, Loren Balhorn, “The Lost History of Antifa”, in Jacobin Magazine
- Synonyms:
- bleak, harsh, cheerless, comfortless, dark, morose, depressing, desolate, dire, disconsolate
- Rigid and unrelenting.
- His grim determination enabled him to win.
- Synonyms:
- overwhelming, unbending, adamantine, concrete, firm, granitic, hard, inflexible, lithic, resistant
- Ghastly or sinister.
- A grim castle overshadowed the village.
- There was, I thought, a trace of very profound and very genuine irony in the timbre—not the flashy, meaninglessly jaunty pseudo-irony of the callow "sophisticate," which Derby had habitually affected, but something grim, basic, pervasive and potentially evil.1933 August (date written), H[oward] P[hillips] Lovecraft, “The Thing on the Doorstep”, in Farnsworth Wright, editor, Weird Tales: A Magazine of the Bizarre and Unusual, volume 29, number 1...
- Synonyms:
- forboding, malevolent, abandoned, arrant, bad, bad apple, bad seed, baleful, scurrilous, baneful
- Disgusting; gross.
- – Wanna see the dead rat I found in my fridge?
– Mate, that is grim! - Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; […]1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter I, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 1
- – Wanna see the dead rat I found in my fridge?
- Fierce, cruel, furious.
- The LORDE shall be grymme vpon them, and destroye all the goddes in the londe. And all the Iles of the Heithen shal worshipe him, euery man in his place.1535 October 14 (Gregorian calendar), Myles Coverdale, transl., Biblia: The Byble, […] (Coverdale Bible), [Cologne or Marburg]: [Eucharius Cervicornus and Johannes Soter?], →OCLC, Zachary [Zechariah]...
- The first people we saw were two grim and stout Salvages upon Cape Charles, with long poles like Javelings, headed with bone, they boldly demanded what we were, and what we would[…]1907 [1624], John Smith, chapter 5, in The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles, volume 1, New York: Macmillan Company
- Synonyms:
- ferocious, raging, savage, violent, agitated, angry, annoyed, apoplectic, bad-tempered, berserk
Verb
grim (third-person singular simple present grims, present participle grimming, simple past and past participle grimmed)
- To make grim; to give a stern or forbidding aspect to.
Noun (1)
grim (plural grims)
- A promiscuous woman.
- You got a new girl and she looks choong (Choong)
But you didn't know your girl was a grim
[…]
Your girl she's a grim, I wouldn't have no grim as my ting2006 July 1, “Grim” (track 8), in Wiley (lyrics), Eskiboy: Da 2nd Phaze
- Synonyms:
- NB: All terms are usually pejorative unless stated otherwise., 304, alley cat, alleycat, amorette, amoret, amorosa, article, Athanasian wench, blowsabella
- You got a new girl and she looks choong (Choong)
Noun (2)
grim (countable and uncountable, plural grims)
Proper noun capitalized: Grim
Grim
- An English surname
grim meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
grim in Hindi
- grim, forbidding, ominous
- मनहूस manhūs
grim in Tamil
- இரக்கமற்ற, கண்டிப்பான
grim in Urdu
- بےرحم, خوفناک, مہیب, سخت, سنگ دل, ظالم
grim in Bengali
- ভয়ঙ্কর, কঠোর, নিরানন্দ, নির্মম
More languagesFewer languages
- grim in Malayalam
- ഉഗ്രമായ, സന്തോഷമില്ലാത്ത, ഭീഷണമായ, വഴങ്ങാത്ത
- grim in Kannada
- ಬೆಚ್ಚಿಸುವ, ಅಂಜಿಸುವ, ಕೆಡುಕಿನ
Examples of grim in a sentence
- The party's chances in the coming election looked grim as a large portion of their voters were going to age out.
- I hung onto the rope like grim death.
- So is there a way out of the grim place we’re in?
Synonyms of grim
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of grim
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | grimmer |
| superlative | grimmest |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | grims |
| present participle | grimming |
| past participle | grimmed |
| past | grimmed |
| Noun | |
| plural | grims |
Origin of grim
From Middle English grim, from Old English grimm, from Proto-West Germanic *grimm, from Proto-Germanic *grimmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrem- (“to resound, thunder, grumble, roar”).
From Middle English grim, grym, greme, from Old English *grimu, *grimmu, grima, from Proto-Germanic *grimmį̄ (“anger, wrath”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrem- (“to resound, thunder, grumble, roar”). Cognate with Middle Dutch grimme, Middle High German grimme f (“anger”), modern German Grimm m.
Probably derived from Old English *Grīm, Old Norse Grímr (literally “masked person”).
Words formed from grim
Phrases with grim
Words that rhyme with grim
Questions about grim
- What does grim mean?
- Grim means dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding.
- What is grim in Hindi?
- Grim in Hindi is मनहूस (manhūs). See Grim meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is grim?
- Grim can be an adjective, a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce grim?
- Grim is pronounced /ɡɹɪm/ (UK).
Words near grim in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: grim (page history and authors); Grim (page history and authors); मनहूस (Hindi) (page history and authors); grim (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); grim (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Grim (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); grim (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); grim (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-grim.ogg.
Cite this entry: “grim.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/grim. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.